Face the Future
by Lady Keane
Summary: ACT III Finally underway! Buttercup, disoriented by amnesia and lost on the streets of Townsville, is being pursued by a mad and mysterious crime lord. Desperate, she enlists the help of a troubled teenage genius to search for her father.
1. Default Chapter

**"FACE THE FUTURE"  
A _Powerpuff Girls_ fanfic by Lady K **

ACT I

* * *

_**NB:** This story is rated strictly PG-13 for violence, dark themes and the odd bit of naughty poo-poo language. Don't read on unless you can handle it, dearies._

* * *

The city of Townsville's skyscrapers glowed warm, earthy tones in the afternoon sun. As the high school students gazed out of their classroom windows at the teasingly inviting cityscape, Mister Waldren curtly began handing out a loose stack of papers. "Right," he began in an attempt to sound crucial, "here are the results of your recent chemistry exam. Though I am quite pleased at some of your results…" He stopped to hand a perfect pair of A-plus papers to the tall redhead girl and her plump brunette friend in the front row, "…I seem to have found quite a lack of effort with most of these measly results."  
He shook the remaining exams at his students like a balled fist. As one, they groaned. 

The dark, slender figure in the rear corner casually licked his finger and turned a page of the book he was absorbed in.   
As Waldren made his way through the back row of pupils (handing out a string of D-minuses and Fs as he went), he eyed the placid student at the end desk with contempt. He was always so cavalier, so… _arrogant_. That air of indifferent superiority irritated the science teacher to no end. Even now as his classmates vexed and moaned over their marked exams, he sat there relaxed with his feet flung on the desk. A Cheshire cat smile curled his lips as ice-blue eyes, framed by tousled ebony locks, smoothly scanned the text he was reading. 

Finally, Waldren came to his seat. "As for yours, Johnny…"  
The boy didn't look up.   
Waldren crossed his arms, a frown appearing on his podgy face. "Johnny."   
Nothing.   
Unable to suffer him anymore, Waldren ripped the book out of his hands. Like a calculated chemical reaction, the students whirled around in their seats to gawk at the impending confrontation.   
Waldren gasped at the page he now saw: a black and white swirl of racy illustrations: fist fights, pretty girls and unkempt, muscular heroes.   
His face promptly blotting a deep crimson, Waldren shoved the comic book into Johnny's face.   
"And just what is THIS, young man?" He fumed.   
Johnny cocked an angular eyebrow. "_Dragon Ball_, Shounen Jump number six, in which Goku and Kuririn must defeat a martial artist intent on destroying Master Roshi."   
Waldren narrowed his eyes. "Yes, well they'll all be having a nice holiday in the teacher's lounge until the end of the day." 

Snatching the book away, he cleared his throat. With a tired sigh he handed the last remaining paper to Johnny.   
"As for your exam... A-plus." The teacher mumbled, and a self-satisfied smirk wavered onto Johnny's lips.   
"However, I didn't appreciate having to decipher your answers from that sloppy penmanship." He sternly tapped a part of the paper covered in handwritten formulae. Johnny's smirk gave way to a slight frown.   
"And these childish doodles all over the page certainly don't award you extra credit."   
Waldren continued, indicating an intricate chain of sparkling pixies in flight, depicted delicately in blue ball-point ink on the margin of the paper.   
"I finished early and I got bored!" Johnny protested.   
Waldren's face was quickly returning to a deep red tint. He breathed in hard. "My boy, you KNOW the regulatio—"   
Johnny snorted. "Jeez, old man, just 'cuz you weren't smart enough to earn a Master's degree doesn't mean you should take it out on _me! _" 

The students drew back in their seats stiffly. They knew from experience that Johnny was the only kid capable of striking Waldren's most sensitive nerves. The teacher snarled, once again yanking Johnny's exam away.   
"THAT'S IT! YOU GET AN F!" 

* * *

_I will not question a teacher's authority.   
I will not question a teacher's authority.   
I will not question a teacher's authority.   
I will not question_— 

Johnny winced and shook out his aching wrist. This sucked—another detention. And yet the troublesome sixteen-year-old should have been used to them by now. It wasn't so much disappointing for himself, but every time his mother had to open up a letter from the principal and read it with distressed eyes and a crinkled forehead it was like a dagger through Johnny's heart. Deep down, he _wanted_ to be a good boy, but this prison camp of a school just cramped his style. He never had a place to focus all his energy. The schoolwork was always too easy to interest him for long, and he wasn't terribly popular… Johnny's parents had wanted to send him to a school for gifted students, but they just couldn't scrape together enough funds. Perhaps it wasn't that bad, he had heard all too many horror stories about the crushing pressure that kids in those selective colleges were put under. But here he was at the other end of the spectrum, with no pressure, no expectations… no ambition. He had a passion for the sciences that was rotting underneath stale textbook syllabi.   
In a moment of melancholy, Johnny pictured himself ending up like the embittered Mister Waldren and shuddered. 

He turned away from the mind-numbing chalkboard assignment and stared outside to the pale pink sky. Sunset. Had he really been here that long?   
The clock read ten to six. Johnny surmised that he may as well give himself an early mark.   
He exited the classroom and sidled down the empty halls, listening to the clicking of his soles on the tiles echo soothingly down the passageway. Reaching his locker he wearily shuffled with his textbooks, dumping whichever ones he would need for homework in his book bag.   
He turned to look at the picture tacked onto his locker door. Three baby pixies peering out of lush green foliage with large, curious eyes: stylised forms of the Greek muses Urania, Polyhymnia and Clio. It was a curious fondness of Johnny's—he enjoyed history and mythology and had always taken a shine to the muses. There was something comforting and familiar about the idea that one's life work was kindled and watched over by powerful ethereal beings. Why he saw them as sprightly little children rather than grown women he wasn't quite sure, but it was a wonderful imaginary refuge all the same. 

"JOH-NEEEEEEEEE!"   
Before he even knew what was happening, the boy was helplessly pinned to the ground. Regaining his scattered wits, he looked up to see a wild grin and a pair of wide blue eyes staring at him with frightening ardour.   
"Hi, Sandy," he managed.   
The pint-sized dervish of a girl helped her classmate up. "What are YOU doing here so late?"   
"Detention," Johnny sighed, brushing himself off. "You?"   
"We were at debating club," said a clear, mature voice. Johnny turned to see the speaker and gave a casual nod in greeting. "Hey, Red."   
Sara huffed at the undignified nickname given for her ample copper-coloured afro.   
"Boy, that was some stunt you pulled in class today!" Sandy squeaked. "Old 'Waldo's gonna be walkin' around with a stick up his butt for the rest of the week."   
"Not to mention a chip on his shoulder." Sara tutted. "You should know better by now, Johnny."   
Johnny looked at his shoes. "I guess." He murmured reluctantly. "But the guy's just such a jerk."   
Sandy leapt into agreement. "Yeah, what he did to you was majorly uncool. You're, like, the smartest guy in the class!"   
Sara laid a firm hand on her friend's shoulder. "And that's why it's a drag to see you waste yourself like that. With your kind of smarts, you should be the school's star pupil."   
The boy cringed. A brief, unreadable smile skipped across his features before he looked away once more. A short pause.   
"I'd better get going."   
He closed his locker, turned and shuffled off down the hall, not bothering to notice the two girls who waved goodbye.   
"See ya Johnny!" Sandy insisted. 

* * *

The ears of a flea-bitten, rangy alley cat pricked up, mechanically searching for any threatening noises in the gloom of the backstreets. Satisfied that nothing was lurking about, it soon relaxed and slinked off into the night.   
Suddenly, a severe-looking grappling hook shot out of a dark corner of the street like a silent bullet. Three nimble phantoms, cloaked in black, effortlessly shimmied up the rope onto the roof of a dilapidated apartment block.   
The tallest of them, presumably the leader, scanned the lamp-lit street below.   
"She'll eventually come to this neighbourhood." He hissed. "All we have to do is wait."   
A shorter member of the trio smiled, and from his belt pulled out a sharp weapon, of which the blade was shaped like a lobster's claw.   
The leader whipped around and wrenched the weapon from his companion's hands.   
"No!" He growled, pale green eyes fierce with indignation.   
"The Master said NOT to harm her." 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's notes:** Sorry for the long wait between updates, but I've been without the 'net for over a week. ^^;; Anyway, from now on I'll probably be putting up new chapters every few days or so. Enjoy!_

* * *

Fat raindrops started to slosh down on the pavement, which didn't help to improve Buttercup's already unsettled mood. Regaining her breath, she slipped out from behind her camouflage of old crates and rushed along the sidewalk as stealthily as possible. She hated not being able to use her powers here.   
She looked up at the city skyline, which was blaring with rows and rows of overlapping neon katakana. He would be somewhere in Tokyo Townsville. The thought of how close she was to finally seeing him again made her heart a lighter load to carry.   
Once more making sure she was unnoticed, she crawled into a back alley and kneeled down by a garbage bin, pulling out a worn, soggy map of the district. While she had no idea where he would be within the area, navigating the labyrinth of streets was made that much easier by- 

Buttercup felt the arms seize her waist roughly before they hauled her up. She kicked and struggled, not bothering to turn around to see the face of who had grabbed her… she already knew who it was.   
The other two assailants quickly came to their leader's aid, holding down the panicked, squirming child with all their force.   
"Let me go, you stupid…"  
Forget not using superpowers. This was an emergency.   
With a sound blow to each of the men, Buttercup broke free of their grip and dashed away. But the powerful figures, caught off-guard as they were, quickly recovered and took off after her. 

* * *

Johnny hurried home through the rain, using his book-bag as a makeshift umbrella. At least this day couldn't get any worse… 

SLAM!   
The teenager went crashing to the ground, his bag opening and homework flying everywhere. He opened his eyes to see a little girl lying by him, rubbing her head from the collision.   
"Why don't you watch where yer going, squirt?" He cried.   
But she barely so much as glanced at him before scurrying off again like a frightened rat.   
"HEY!" Johnny called after her while clumsily stuffing his water-logged books back in his bag. Finally he scrambled to his feet and started running after the strange child. 

She tried to shake her pursuer off by manuvering in and out of tight squeezes, such as in between lamp posts and parking meters, but it did little to deter the agile boy.   
"You… you could have apologised…" he grunted, leaping over a bus-stop bench the girl had wormed under.   
Eventually, she came to a dead end. High brick walls on all three sides, and there was no way to fly out as long as this dope was watching her.   
The moment she stopped, he caught up to her and grabbed her by the collar.   
"Didn't your parents ever teach you any manners?" 

She could hear the three men approaching the corner. Wasting no time, the girl scowled up at Johnny and spat at him. As he recoiled in disgust, she dove into the nearest hiding spot and disappeared from sight.   
"She's in here!" A raspy voice declared.   
Johnny turned-and his heart stopped short at what he saw. 

They were like cat burglars from hell: three imposing figures with glowing, pitiless eyes, the tallest of which stood at least six feet. They were dressed completely in black but for a crimson insignia on the front of their uniforms, and a utility belt around their waists equipped with all manner of horrendous weapons.   
The tallest one smiled: a horrible sneer that looked like it belonged on a crocodile who had cornered its prey. 

Johnny managed to find the composure to slowly back away from the horrible figures, until the tallest prowled towards him and brought out a sleek black pistol.   
The trembling boy felt his throat go dry.   
"Let's get rid of this little nuisance first…"  
He examined the teenager's features and took another step closer, aiming the pistol. Then, like a sudden electric shock, he drew back sharply in utter astonishment.   
"It's…"  
His cronies looked at him in puzzlement.   
"It's him!" The head assailant gasped. "The Master… We need to tell the Master."   
The trio turned on their heels and fled out of the alley, one tripping over a garbage can as he went. 

At the noise of the impact, the little girl peeked her head out of her hiding place.   
"What happened?"   
Johnny, still completely stunned, barely heard her.   
"What happened?" She asserted once again.   
"Uhm…" The boy said quietly "They… they left."   
The girl's green eyes came alive. "Wow! You must've been real strong to beat up those guys!"   
"Uh…"  
She skipped over to Johnny and looked up at him curiously. That face…  
"What's your name?" She asked him.   
"Johnny."   
"I'm Buttercup!" She announced, perhaps a little too proudly.   
He knelt down to her height. "Who were those guys chasing you?"   
The perky tot suddenly crossed her arms and glared at him. "I'm not telling YOU!"   
Johnny closed his eyes and sighed. "Fine. Whatever." 

This evening had just been too much for him. Perhaps it was best simply not to ask. He got up, slung his bag over his back and headed off.   
"WAIT!" Buttercup yowled like a distressed lion cub, stopping him in his tracks.   
He turned. "Shouldn't you be getting home, squirt?"   
"I… I can't go home."   
Johnny frowned "What?"   
"I'm looking for somebody."   
The boy felt obliged to ask. "Is it your Mom, or a sibling-"  
"I'm looking for the Professor." She stated pointedly. "A-and I'm lost." She added, her voice becoming a little weaker. 

Johnny gazed at the downcast urchin. She really was a pitiful sight: a tiny, uncertain creature shivering in the rain, all alone, her face muddy and her little green tunic soaked through and through.   
He held out his hand to her. "Come on. Maybe we can call someone at my house."   
Her proud grin reappeared, and she skipped alongside him through the puddles.   
"And by the way," she piped up.   
"What?"   
"MY NAME'S NOT 'SQUIRT'!!" 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	3. Chapter 3

Sam blinked, staring down at the child.   
"Ah-where did you say she was from, son?"   
Johnny looked at his father blankly, trying his best to explain the predicament.   
"Well… er-"  
"My name's Buttercup Watanabe, and I live in the apartment below yours with my daddy and sisters and five cats!" Buttercup stated assuredly. "And Johnny is my new best friend!"   
Johnny's eyebrows arched. "But I thought you-"  
He was quickly silenced by Buttercup's mary-jane stabbing him surreptitiously in the toe.   
"Well, wherever you came from, you're frightfully soaked from being out in that awful storm!" Johnny's mother Michiko rushed in from the kitchen carrying a neat pile of fluffy white towels. She bundled Buttercup up in one and patted her on the head.   
"Such a cute little girl you are-- would you like a nice mug of warm tea?"   
She nodded gleefully as Johnny narrowed his eyes at her. 

* * *

Later that night Johnny sat down at his desk, opened the still damp textbook and tried to concentrate on his math homework.   
He chewed his pencil, thinking about the strange girl. After having dinner with the family, she had left their apartment without any distress. So, after all that, she was probably just some stupid neighbour kid who spotted him walking home and wanted to play a silly prank.   
But then who were those guys who had pursued her?   
And why were they so afraid of him? 

_Tap tap tap_.   
The boy looked up from his work to see two familiar green eyes staring in at him from the window. What the… this was just getting weirder and weirder.   
He reluctantly opened the window, letting Buttercup into his room.   
"How did you get all the way up here?"   
"Ssssh!" She hissed. "Your parents can't know I'm here."   
Johnny crossed his arms, looking quite smug. "So you're NOT Buttercup Watanabe of apartment 3b, huh?"   
"I'm sorry I had to lie to you. But…" her little face became grave and serious   
"nobody here must find out who I am." 

The teenager sat back down and leaned forward with an interrogating air. "What about _me? _"   
Buttercup sighed. "If I told you where I come from you wouldn't believe me. All you need to know is that I have to find the Professor."   
Johnny persisted. "And just who is this professor?"   
The girl blinked, like she was searching for information that wasn't there. "I… I had an accident, and now I don't remember some things too good. I don't even remember what his name is or what he looks like. All I know is that the Professor is my dad."   
Johnny nodded in understanding.   
"If I find him, we can go back home and he can fix everything." 

A pregnant pause followed. Buttercup stared into Johnny's eyes.   
"Well?"   
"Well what?"   
"Will you help me find him?"   
Johnny leant back in his chair and toyed with his pencil. "I guess I don't have much of a choice now, do I?"   
Buttercup struck the air with a triumphant fist. "Alright!" she hollered. "I'll share your bed," she stated, and at that instant plopped down comfortably on Johnny's bedspread.   
"Hey! I thought my parents couldn't know that you're here!"   
She pouted at him. "Well, where else am I going to sleep?" 

With nothing more said, she wriggled her way underneath the blankets and made herself comfortable. Then she unzipped the pocket of her dress and brought out a little octopus plush, hugging it tightly.   
"What's that?" Johnny inquired.   
"Something from home," she replied. 

* * *

Him pursed his lips as he and his two best henchmen watched their Master pace up and down the grided steel floor like a caged panther.   
"This is indeed a strange predicament… and you're sure the girl hasn't left his side since?"   
Him nodded. "Yes, my Lord."   
The demon's face was cast down in formality, but from the corner of his eye he watched the brilliant crime-lord as he strode to and fro. Such a magnificent man he was-tall and stately, and elegantly handsome… he had a steadfast presence and a cold charisma that had won over an entire cult to do his bidding. Even Him's own diabolical deeds seemed like mere childhood pranks in comparison to this visionary genius. That, of course, is why Him had joined his side-he had found a new and greater purpose with the man. Lord Alecto was going to smite the unworthy and the selfish and bring about a new age for all of Townsville's outcasts.   
One of Him's henchmen spoke up.   
"Master, we can't even be sure if this child is indeed the boy the Captain claims him to be. He could be completely expendable-" 

"SHUT UP!" Alecto roared, his echo booming throughout the vaulted chamber. "I trust my Captain's judgement to the utmost." He nodded at Him, and the demon smiled internally. "Therefore it must be the boy. But…" Alecto paused, clasping his gloved hands. "Perhaps it is possible to just injure him to get him out of the way. He is young and naïve…" here he paused for a slight chuckle " …and I doubt he would put up much of a fight. We need not kill him just to get to the last Powerpuff Girl. And I do not feel that such an action would affect causality too greatly. Who knows? An injury dealt to this boy in the past by one of our troops could have been the very event that allowed all _this_ to transpire." He opened his arms out with a dry smile, indicating the massive complex the four men were standing in.   
But Him was still anxious. "Injure him?" he repeated. "Oh, my Lord, I daren't-"  
"Captain…" Alecto crossed his arms and raised a chastising eyebrow.   
The imp fell straight into line. "Yes, Sir." 

Alecto waved a hand, ordering the two lieutenants to leave the room. As they did he sat down at his large desk, still flanked by his right-hand man.   
"You know how much finding Buttercup means to me, Him."   
He nodded. "I have our finest elite troops on stand-by for the mission, my Lord. Their orders shall be to deliver her unharmed."   
"Good." The man opened a drawer, taking out a box of black cigarettes. Lighting one up, he added "And you remember what I told you about not using those supernatural powers of yours while in the past?"   
The demon nodded again, the very picture of reverence. Then after a suitable pause, he found the courage to look up into Alecto's face, a hopeful smile colouring his fine elfin features.   
"And, will there be anything further you desire my assistance for?"   
Alecto smirked. "Not today, Him. Now be gone." 

Sitting alone, Alecto blew a few smoke rings, wallowing in the irony of it all. Was he really that charismatic? Had the most deceptive and untrustworthy of all villains really become his own personal lapdog? And was he really going to soon overpower the city that had seemed to overpower _him_ so foully for most of his life?   
He chuckled again: the deep, smooth, fruity tone that his henchmen had become so used to hearing from him during times of triumph.   
Revenge was sweet. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's notes: in case you're interested, you can to my website (in my profile) for the story too. The whole of Act I is up there currently, as well as some character profiles and other things. I warn you though, some of the material's a bit spoiler-ish, particularly if you're following the story here._

Zoe Rose: Settle now dear, it'll all be explained soon enough. ;) And, if you read over the story carefully, it should be pretty obvious who Johnny is.

Hairy Gregory: Him's always such a dominant guy, I just though it'd be something new to toss him into second-in-command in this story. Like I said, read on and you'll find out what his true agenda is :)

* * *

Something tasted like carpet.   
Johnny opened his bleary eyes to find himself lying flat on his bedroom floor. Getting up, he noticed the rumpled sheets in the bed next to him, along with the octopus toy sitting on the pillow. Buttercup was already up and about, sitting at Johnny's desk. The boy shook his head in disgust. "You pushed me out of my own bed?" He grumbled.   
Buttercup protested. "There wasn't enough room for Octi and me." 

He got up and stretched out his stiff muscles. Then he craned his neck towards the desk, curious to see what his charge's early morning activity was. It looked like she was colouring something in…  
"MY DOCTOR MANGNUM COMIC!?"   
The young girl drew back in surprise and indigence as the horrified teen yanked his beloved comic away from her. His hand slapped to his head in exasperation when he saw the rainbow streaks of marker that stained the once pristine black and white pages.   
"Not my first edition…" he lamented.   
The child shrugged. "They looked a little boring. I was spicing them up for you!" She asserted, that proud smile of hers emerging. "I probably doubled the collector's value-you should be thanking me!"   
Johnny sat on his bed, cradling the graffitied novel in his arms and mourned. 

Just then, a knock was heard at the door.   
"Johnny-chan?" Came Michiko's voice. "Are you up and dressed?"   
The two youngsters looked at each other, gripped with panic.   
"Er… hold on, Kaasan!"   
Without so much as a warning, Johnny grabbed Buttercup off the chair and crammed her, along with Octi and the coloured-in comic, under the bed. Oblivious to her muffled protests, he quickly threw the covers over the edge of the bed and scrambled to don the rumpled clothes on his floor. Panting and wild-eyed, he finally opened the door for his mother.   
She looked at her flustered son quizzically. "_Daijoubu ka?_"   
He nodded awkwardly. "_Un…_"  
She smiled at him. "I just wanted to tell you that breakfast is ready. Come out and join us before it gets cold, okay, _musuko_?" 

When the door once again clicked shut, the boy puffed a much desired sigh of relief and flopped back down on the carpet, drained from the surge of panic.   
Buttercup squirmed out from under the bed, clutching Octi.   
"I hope your Mom made pancakes!" 

* * *

Tapping his foot and grunting impatiently, Johnny waited for Buttercup to finish rubbing the fluffy stomach of the Welsh corgi leashed to a sidewalk bike rack.   
"Must you do that to every dog we meet?"   
Buttercup replied by turning her head and haughtily sticking out her tongue.   
"We don't have time for this!" The last of the boy's patience finally wore away and he smartly tugged at the girl's free hand. She stayed firm on her spot, refusing to go along with her elder companion.   
"I wanna pet the dog."   
"Come on!"   
And so it became a tense, lengthy tug-of-war between the two. Buttercup began squealing harshly, her face blotted with stubborn juvenile rage. Johnny cringed to see the small group of onlookers that had begun to stop on the sidewalk and gawk at the struggle.   
_Now I finally realise what a nightmare I was for my parents_, he thought.   
The girl affirmed her position by latching her two little hands onto the bike rack. Johnny pulled and pulled, but for some reason this child was a lot harder to budge than she seemed-both emotionally and physically.   
"Do you wanna see your dad again or not!?" He shouted. 

Suddenly, Buttercup fell mute. That one comment managed to whip her right back into line. With sad eyes she said farewell to the dog, took Johnny's hand and the two started off down the sidewalk once more. 

It was Thursday morning, and a bright, crisp, sunny day. The landscape was fresh and damp from the previous night's storm. Johnny was using a free period (as well as two or three not-so-free ones) to help Buttercup in her quest. She wanted to find the man she called 'The Professor', and Johnny reasoned that there was no better place to find a professor than at good old Townsville University. 

Together they entered the gigantic complex, and Buttercup stared up at the beautiful Federation-style buildings that lined the interlaced streets.   
"Woah," she breathed, "is this where the Professor is?"   
"Could be, Squirt." Johnny replied, looking around at the various departments of the school. "So what's he a professor of?"   
"Science!" Buttercup answered assuredly.   
"Yeah, but what kind of science?"   
"Uh…" The five-year-old squinted hard to try and comprehend this unanticipated question.   
Johnny's face fell like a depressed bloodhound's. "Don't tell me you don't know," he groaned.   
"Well… I think it starts with a 'B'…" the girl tried to help.   
The adolescent sighed tiredly. "This could take all day… but we may as well start somewhere familiar. Come on." He ushered Buttercup in the direction of the Physical Sciences block. 

* * *

From the cover of a tall Norfolk pine, Him watched the two unsuspecting children amble down the paved university road. What the Master had told him last night was still weighing heavily on his mind as a terrible ethical burden. To think that they were ordered to hurt the boy! By the very man who should have known better than that! Him had always happily followed any orders that his Lord Alecto had given, no matter how gruesome or suspect they were, but this… Him just couldn't bring himself to do it. Surely there was some way to capture Buttercup _without_ injuring Johnny… ? 

The demon's guileful mind began ticking over, and with little conscious effort he soon came up with a quick plan of how to do so. Of course, he would be going behind the backs of his lieutenants, and more painfully, Lord Alecto, but as Him reasoned, this really was for the crime-lord's own good. And the good of Lord Alecto was the good of all of Townsville. 

* * *

"Jonathan, my boy!" A short, podgy, decidedly bald man in a lab coat and rubber gloves waddled cheerfully from his paper-strewn desk over to the doorway to greet the young man.   
"It is such a nice surprise you coming to see me!"   
Buttercup, who was standing behind Johnny and wrinkling her nose up at the sulfuric smell of the chemistry lab, suddenly realised that the only thing thicker than this man's waistline was his exotic accent.   
"Professor Tartakovsky," Johnny replied warmly.   
"I have two hour break before I teach my next class. We both have plenty of time to chat. Terrific, yes?"   
Johnny smiled, and moved to say something before the teacher grabbed hold of his forearm. Suddenly, he became very grim.   
"Unless you are giving more silly theories about undiscovered chemicals not yet put on the periodic table! I tell you once, I tell you a trillion times, I do not have time for nonsense like that, boy!"   
Johnny shook his head. "No, Professor. In fact, er, there's something I need your help with…"  
Reluctantly, Buttercup peeked out from behind Johnny's legs. 

Professor Tartakovsky's eyes lit up like two bulging light bulbs. He knelt down to the urchin's height and unashamedly pinched her left cheek.   
"Oh, she is precious little babe! She looks much like you! She is your sister, yes?"   
Johnny looked a little nonplussed. "No, actually. She's a friend of mine who's trying to find her father."   
"Awww," Tartakovsky cooed, "you are lost, Pigeon?"   
"I'm not a pigeon," Buttercup answered humourlessly, "and my dad's The Professor. Johnny says he might be around here somewhere."   
"Perhaps so," the teacher scratched his chin. "What's his name?"   
Buttercup turned away, gazing helplessly into space. "I don't know…"  
Tartakovsky looked quizzically at Johnny.   
"Er, she had an accident recently," he explained. "She's got amnesia, I think."   
The old man tilted his head to the side. "Oh, that is very sad." 

After a short silence, he brightened again, opening his arms out to the youngsters. "Come, I was just going for some morning tea. We go to the faculty lounge and look over the staff roster." He turned to Buttercup with an encouraging smile. "Perhaps we will find one who could be your papa."   
"Thanks," Buttercup said quietly. 

Johnny pursed his lips as he watched Tartakovsky, still beaming at the child, take hold of her hand as she exited the lab and skipped down the hallway. He didn't like how much attention she was stealing from him. First with his mother, and now with his mentor? It wasn't fair. Unrelated they might have been, but Buttercup may as well have been the upstagingly cute little sister Tartakovsky guessed her to be. He just prayed that they would find her dad as soon as possible so she could stop leeching off his own relationships. 

* * *

"This one?" Tartakovsky pointed to a profile in a great fat binder that was open on the coffee table.   
"Professor Bruce Winchester, head of geology. Born 1935…" he trailed the lines of text until he came upon what he was looking for. "Two sons, divorced."   
Buttercup shook her head. "That can't be him." She concluded, albeit rather redundantly.   
Johnny sighed and flipped through a few more profiles. He checked family status: all of them either without children or daughters.   
It really was a blind search. They were scouring the profiles of each male professor in the science department, finding out which ones had daughters and which ones didn't. Johnny had gone around asking the professors he could find about Buttercup, but as for the rest of them, the teenager could do nothing but read out their whole profile to the little girl and pray that something would be familiar to her. But because of the poor state of her damaged memory, they could have already skipped over her father without even realising they had found him. 

Flopping back in his spot on the sofa, Johnny stared up at the staff room ceiling and moaned. "This is so tedious."   
"Come on Jonathan," Tartakovsky coaxed. "You have to be sticking to it. Besides, there is only so many male science professors in this school, yes?"   
"Yeah, _Jonathan_," Buttercup teased. 

Their search was interrupted by a young teacher's aid sitting down beside them on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a snack.   
"Hello, Professor Tartakovsky. And Jonathan," she smiled at the group.   
"Sadie," Tartakovsky began "would you be knowing of any male science professors in this school with a little daughter called Buttercup?"   
The young woman thought hard for a moment. "Not that I can think of, sir."   
Johnny's face fell, but Buttercup was more interested in the bag of potato chips she was opening.   
"Where'd you get those?" She salivated.   
Sadie smiled again. "From a vending machine in the hall." 

Johnny turned to his charge. "Are you sure there isn't anything else you can tell us that will help the search?"   
"Well…" Buttercup pondered, not once taking her eyes off the potato chips. "I do have two sisters called Blossom and Bubbles. We're triplets."   
Johnny and Tartakovsky looked at each other meaningfully.   
"Well, that certainly helps!" Johnny remarked.   
"I want some chips!"   
"I thought you wanted to find your dad," the teenager retorted, disgusted at the child's short attention span.   
Tartakovsky smiled. "You take her down for a snack. I keep looking and see if I find anything."   
"Okay. Thanks again, Professor, I appreciate this." Johnny reluctantly got up, crossing the room. "C'mon Squirt."   
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT!!" 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	5. Chapter 5

_ Zoe Rose: Yeah, thanks ^_^ I like what's going on between Johnny and Buttercup too. And I'm glad you can see the character in Him's actions-- I was half expecting the readers to not understand what he's doing in the story! ^^;;_

kass: Well, I can't really reveal how correct your assumptions were right now, as it would give away the whole story! Feel free to read on though, I think a few upcoming things may surprise you (escpecially in Act II)

Hairy Gregory: Him's lovely little strategem will be revealed now, brace yourself for another fight scene. ;) Oh, and I hope your sister was never TOO much trouble as a kid!

* * *

It was class time, and most of the students were in the lecture halls, leaving the grounds nearly deserted. Clouds had begun to collect again outside, so the unlit corridors of the university became a lot darker.   
It was perfect. 

Him shifted in his hidden position on the high ceiling rafters. He was an unequalled predator, vicious and determined and ready to strike. A lioness with her pride, eager to take the kill back to her king.   
"Remember, just grab her and escape as quickly as possible. I don't want to see any unnecessary moves from either of you or you'll pay with punishment."   
"Yes, sir." They whispered back, shuddering at the thought of Lord Alecto's ungodly disciplinarian tactics.   
Him grinned. Poor fools. Little did they realise what kind of moves he actually _deemed_ unnecessary… and what exactly the punishment would be. 

"I hope they have salt and vinegar flavour," Buttercup chirped "and… Ooh! Do you think you could buy me a chocolate bar too?"   
"What do you wanna do, get fat?" Johnny mumbled.   
"Hey," Buttercup pouted, "You take that ba-" 

A black shadow swooped down, taking the girl in its terrible grasp. Just as quickly as it appeared, it swept back up into the darkness where it came from.   
"HEY!"   
In panic, Johnny's eyes shot up to the high ceiling. In the low light, he could just make out three well camouflaged figures escaping along the rafters, agile as a troupe of monkeys. Not knowing what else to do, he pursued them from the ground. He managed to keep only a few lengths behind them until they came to the end of the hall, turning almost supernaturally swiftly around the corner.   
Johnny turned. They were gone from the rafters.   
"SHOW YOURSELF, YOU BASTARDS!" 

Then, when the echo of his cry had died away, he heard a slight scuffling sound from above.   
They had gone upwards…  
Johnny's eyes rested on the nearby door to the building's fire escape.   
Wasting no time, he dashed up the concrete stairwell as quick as his long legs would take him. Up one flight, two flights, three flights…  
He could hear them. 

* * *

Buttercup screamed. It was all she could do. Being in this big building full of people, it was too risky to use her powers. Perhaps she had broken the promise she had made to herself last night in the alley downtown, but she was determined not to break it again.   
And yet she was so scared! How on Earth was she going to escape? 

The girl squinted as her captors leapt out of an open ventilation duct into the blinding daylight of the building's roof.   
"Alright, let's-" 

"Gyaaah!"   
Buttercup collapsed under a clump of human flesh. The kidnapper holding her had suddenly been pinned to the ground by someone.   
"Let her go, you clown!"   
She recognised Johnny's voice.   
The boy connected his fist to Him's face with surprising force. Pulling him up by his black shirt, he clenched his fist once again, threatening to deliver a second blow.   
"Who the hell are you?"   
But curiously, Him's reaction was one of alarm rather than contempt. "You idiot!" The demon blurted from a bruised mouth: "Don't you know what you're doin-"  
"-NOBODY ATTACKS THE CAPTAIN!"   
Like two vicious dobermans, Him's two lieutenants dragged the startled teenager to his feet and quickly took to pummelling him senseless. Before Johnny could react, he had suffered a kick to the stomach, a punch to the face and a painful uppercut. 

"Oh no…"  
Him's mouth dropped open in horror as he gazed at the grisly attack, trying to restrain the ever-struggling Buttercup. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to see. Time to put his little 'counter-attack' into action…  
He focused his gaze intently on the vanquished young boy, and concentrated. 

* * *

All Johnny could feel was the intensely sharp pain that throbbed through his body and the paralysing weakness dominating his senses. He couldn't even think straight. He couldn't…  
Then, in one bright, sudden instant, something happened to him. It felt like a wonderful jolt of icy cool adrenalin shooting through his entire body. The pain he was feeling was easing, he felt stronger… and something else.   
His senses were sharpening. He was growing more alert. His reflexes were refined and acute. 

He opened his eyes, which were burnished with a ghostly green mist. With one whistling movement of his arm, he sent out what looked like a volley of bright pink lightning, which sent one of the attackers flying. They skidded along the ground in a surprised and battered clump, stopping no less than thirty feet away. When the other tried to back away, Johnny picked him up by the neck, threw him effortlessly up in the air and swiftly whirled around to deliver a tornado kick that sent the assailant caroming into the sky. The helpless henchman soared up like a rocket before falling and landing right on top of his comrade. 

Buttercup's eyes grew wide with amazement. "Woah! You didn't tell me you had super-powers too!"   
Johnny had since regained his wits, and was staring dumbly at the pile of beat-up soldiers, confounded by his sudden burst of strength. "Super-powers?" He parroted blankly.   
"Yeah!" Buttercup cheered. "Now that means I can use _mine! _"   
Grinning with empowerment, the hunted became the hunter. She walloped Him in the chin, felling him to the ground. With no hesitation she lay a super fast succession of punches into the imp, her arms whirring like the rotor blades on a military chopper. Behind her, the two lieutenants began to stir. "Oh, no you don't," she clucked, and leapt into the air, flying over to catch them with supersonic speed. A trail of green light sparkled in her wake.   
Johnny just stared. 

After a struggle, the lieutenants were finally freed from her punishment by a sly move from Him. When Buttercup wasn't looking, he tripped her up and whisked his henchmen away from her reach.   
"This isn't over," He snarled, and with a flick of his claw the three soldiers dissipated into thin air.   
Johnny just stared. 

Buttercup roared. "Those jerks, I can't believe they got away!" She punched a nearby cement block in frustration, creating a considerably large crater of cracks along it. "Super-powers…" Johnny repeated yet again, like a mantra. He shook his head. "Wait a minute, you have super-powers!?"   
"Yeah, dummy, just like you." She beamed at him.   
"Uh…" he blinked. "I… don't have super-powers." He told her.   
She did a double take. "But-but what about the way you beat up those bad guys just then?"   
Of course, it had been Him who had temporarily infused Johnny with some of his own powers in an effort to protect him from the lieutenants. But now that the demon was gone and the battle was over, the boy had returned to normal once more.   
Johnny shrugged. "I dunno what happened there. I can't usually do that. Sorry." 

The panic in Buttercup's throat rose. Then she had broken her promise for no reason! She plopped down on the ground and buried her head in her hands.   
"Are you okay?"   
She sniffled quietly. After a long while, she looked up at Johnny again.   
The look on her face made the young boy's heart stagger. Those burning green eyes had become deep pools of sadness, exposing for one fleeting moment a vulnerability so dominating that it pained him to see it in the usually feisty little tyke.   
"Promise me you won't tell anybody I have super-powers. Please." She choked, those eyes becoming even more pleading by the second.   
Johnny smiled gently, patting the girl's back.   
"I promise." 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	6. Chapter 6

_ Reviewers: Thanks muchly for feedback, I hope you don't mind if I don't respond to you individually this chapter. I'm feeling all tired and lazy and Homer Simpson-ish at the moment. Mmmm, beer nuts._

* * *

The ruckus of the rooftop battle had managed to attract a small audience on the grounds below, and one concerned student had rushed off to phone the police. Because it had taken place so high up nobody had managed to see much, let alone any of the feats of superhuman strength, so Buttercup's extraordinary abilities still remained safely unknown by all but Johnny.   
The police closed off the scene of the battle to investigate and picked up a description of the three criminals. But, as Johnny and Buttercup knew, trying to track enemies like those down would be a hopeless wild goose chase. The two youths were taken to the nearby infirmary, the nurse scratching her head to find that neither one was the least bit injured. 

The super-powers, Johnny noted. This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute. Not only was there the mystery of the mighty combat abilities that had coursed so fleetingly through his own body… but the astonishing fact that underneath Buttercup's immature, tantrum-happy exterior there was fearsome and battle-ready warrior. It certainly made Johnny look upon the child in a whole new light-- she seemed so much more mysterious, and maybe even mythic, than before. Just where had she come from? 

His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of Professor Tartakovsky's footfalls as he waddled along the now-crowded hall towards them. Johnny's eyes crept up from the floor to meet with him. The man's usually smiling face was apologetic and grim, and in place of the bulky staff roster was a pair of empty hands.   
"I am sorry, little Buttercup. I look all morning, but I did not find the professor you have been searching for."   
Buttercup pursed her lips. "Then we'll just go to the next university…" she proclaimed with a tinge of panic in her words. "Won't we?" She looked up to Johnny. 

He sighed. "I… look, Squirt. It's kinda hard to find someone if you don't even know their name. Going through all the universities in the county alone could take months." The wide eyed little girl's lower lip involuntarily began to wobble.   
"Maybe we could file a missing person report with the police…" Johnny suggested.   
"No!" Buttercup cried. "Not the police, _please_."   
The tone of her voice commanded Johnny to heed her wish. Tartakovsky raised a dubious eyebrow, but Johnny was now too convinced of the child's plight to suspect her of being some kind of fraud or criminal. The only thing that aroused his interest was still the question of what on Earth his super-powered little ward's origins were. 

They exited the university, Johnny tugging a straggling Buttercup along by the hand. "Where to now, then?" She asked him.   
"Well, since you don't wanna go to the cops, we better call off the search until we've got a better plan. I can't go back to school today, 'cuz the teachers'd totally eat me alive for playing hooky. And we can't go home, Kaasan is there and she'd have a cow too."   
Not knowing where to go, Johnny stopped in the middle of the footpath and looked up at the skyline hopelessly.   
"Y'know, Squirt, sometimes I really hate this city." 

* * *

_Wretched minions! How dare they have pounced on the boy like that!_   
Him calmed himself then, just enough to reflect that his two lieutenants were too simple and unquestioning to have done anything different during the battle that morning. Even so, it filled his heart with bile to think that they had no qualms at all about injuring young Johnny-a child so crucial to their task. He tried to feel the same of Lord Alecto, who had been the one to issue the questionable orders… but he couldn't. Whatever failings that man had were more than made up for in his brilliance, his elegance, his enterprising. There was no distinction in Him's mind between Alecto and God. 

And as such, Him wasn't about to let him down. If his Lord wanted Buttercup delivered to him, that's what he would get. It mattered little that his lieutenants were too injured to fight now, in fact Him was glad that they would finally be out of the way.   
At last, Him was going to go after the girl who had eluded him for so long-and this time, he was going to do it on his own terms. 

* * *

"Oooh!" Sandy squealed. "I didn't know you had a little sister!"   
Johnny groaned. "I wish people would stop calling her that."   
"Actually, Buttercup-chan is our neighbour." Michiko informed cheerfully, setting plates upon the crowded table. "She eats with us because her father works long hours."   
"And my sisters have rocket science and brain surgery classes after school." The girl added assuredly.   
The grown-ups at the table swapped an odd look between them. 

It was Monday evening, and Johnny and his two classmates had been involved in study group for the afternoon. He had managed to keep Buttercup out of their hair by sticking her in front of his family's television. Not the most responsible of actions, but at least it was a place where she would be safe.   
Johnny had spent the weekend reading mountains of medical journals in an effort to find some helpful information on amnesia. If he could manage to unlock Buttercup's memory, it would make their search for the elusive Professor a lot easier. It was sad that the girl was so far gone that she couldn't even recall her own last name. 

But at the moment, it was kind of hard to pity her. Her face messy with clumps of sticky rice, she was elaborating on stories of her imaginary 'family' downstairs and their evermore fantastic feats. Sandy, Sara and Johnny' parents listened in, not convinced of her fibbing for a second but utterly charmed by the tyke's mannerisms and imagination. Johnny found it simply disgusting. 

"So what happened then?" Sara asked, an amused grin sitting upon her face.   
"Well, Blossom and I couldn't stop the chalk monsters, no matter how hard we beat 'em up… but then Bubbles got up from the ground, ran into the classroom and got some chalk. Then she went up to the nasty frowny monsters and drew smiley faces and hearts and rainbows on 'em and stuff. Then BLAM!-"   
Buttercup violently swung her arm, accidentally coming into contact with her glass of juice and spilling it all over Johnny's dinner plate.   
"Hey!" The boy wailed. 

"Oh, Buttercup…" Michiko cooed, shuffling over to her seat. "Did you spill your juice, you poor thing?" She leant over to the child and picked up the cup, dabbing at the wet tabletop with a dishrag.   
"Here, I'll get you some more!" Sara offered, and leant over to fetch the juice jug, knocking yet another cup over into Johnny's drowned meal.   
The boy glumly watched random slivers of vegetable and beef bob about in their sweet, sticky sea and quietly whimpered.   
"What about my dinner?"   
"Oh honestly, Johnathan, I think you're old enough to clean up your own mess." Michiko clucked, still hovering over Buttercup.   
"But… but…" Johnny's mouth dropped open in astonishment and disgust. "She was the one who knocked it over!" He pointed to the pint-sized culprit.   
Buttercup narrowed her eyes-what a jealous, vindictive jerk he was being. Time to play hardball. 

Scrunching up tiny fists and girlish features, Buttercup's face promptly went red as she exploded in a shrill show of staged tears.   
"WaaaaaaaaahJohnnydoesn'tlikemeanymoooooooooooore!"   
As one, the three women at the table 'Awwww'ed and rushed to Buttercup's side, coddling maternal instincts awakened by the upset tot.   
"Johnny, how could you be so mean!" Sandy chided. "She really likes you!"   
Johnny swore he could see a smug grin tug slightly at the side of Buttercup's mouth as Sandy turned her back to look at him.   
"_Kinishi nai_, Buttercup-chan, let's get you your juice to settle you down." Michiko took her in her arms and delivered a harsh parental glare to her son.   
"I didn't do anything…" was Johnny's flabbergasted, obsolete protest.   
He flopped back in his seat and stared at the gratuitous scene. After a while, he turned to his father.   
"Are chicks always like that with little kids?"   
Sam said nothing, but lowered his head, gave his son an empathetic pat on the back and sighed. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	7. Chapter 7

_ All right, final chapter of Act I! Things are only going to get darker and more dramatic from here on in, folks, so hold on to your hats... _

* * *

"I hope you'll try and behave yourself in class this week. Sara told me about the incident between you and Mr. Waldren on Wednesday," Michiko murmured as she meticulously set piles of clean laundry in Johnny's wardrobe.   
The boy sat on his bed silently, gazing out of the window at the neon horizon of the city.   
"Is something bothering you?" She asked him, a mother's instinct, grown strong with sixteen years of experience, picking out even the slightest twinge of upset in Johnny's mood.   
"It's Buttercup…" he sighed, "I really don't know what to make of her."   
Michiko smiled. "She reminds me of you at that age, you know."   
Finished with the laundry, she leant over and kissed him on the forehead, the smile still adhered to her adoring expression.   
"_Oyasumi_, my love."   
"'Night, Kaasan." 

The moment the door clicked shut, the little urchin popped out from under the bed.  
"You 'don't know what to make of me'?" She repeated with ridicule in her tone. "What's that s'posed to mean?"   
Johnny looked at the carpet, trying to find inoffensive words. "Well…" he began "the whole thing with your super-powers, and wanting to be anonymous with everyone but me-- not to mention those psychos that are after you… it's all a little odd."   
Buttercup turned away. "So?" she retorted, her voice defiant yet wavering slightly. "I'm just in trouble and need your help, that's all."   
Heedless, Johnny continued his questions. "And how come you don't wanna use your super-powers?"   
Buttercup huffed impatiently. "Be-_cause_, Ms. Bellum said no-one could use any of their special powers in the past-" 

The tension in the air at that moment hung heavily on both their shoulders. In an unconscious effort to back up, Buttercup clamped her hands over her mouth, but it was too late. She knew full well what information she had let slip…  
"The… the past?" Johnny choked. "You mean you're from the _future? _" 

Johnny stared at her, stiff and bug-eyed, as Buttercup turned away. The future. She had been blocking that thought from her mind for a while now. What lay in waiting for her back at home… the confusion, the dangers, the loss… her sisters and her father… and what had happened to them all…  
She unzipped her dress pocket again and took the worn, tattered old Octi out. Gazing down at the little stuffed toy was a bittersweet heartache, having a dagger being driven into her by the one thing that had remained pure, untouched and lovely in that horrible place. 

Quiet tears fell. Buttercup dropped to the floor and clutched her toy tight.   
Johnny's eyes softened. What an idiot he had been. He now saw that regardless of the super-powers, the crazy kidnappers, supposed time travel and all the other bizarre goings on, at the centre of it was a scared little girl who had lost her family. Perhaps it was best not to ask questions. Perhaps it was better just to be accepting…  
"C'mere." He said quietly, opening his arms out to the girl. When she climbed into them, they sat upon the bed together and cuddled, Johnny soothingly stroking the little child's head as she cried.   
Closing his eyes and drifting in the intimate hush, he recalled a lullaby-like Sinatra ballad that his father had sung to him often during childhood. Softly, almost unconsciously, he began to sing: 

_"Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you.   
Embrace me, you irreplaceable you!   
Just one look at you my heart is tipsy in me,   
You and you alone bring out the gipsy in me." _

"I love all the many charms about you.   
Above all, I want my arms about you.   
So don't be a naughty baby,   
Come to Papa, come to Papa, do.   
My sweet embraceable you!" 

Buttercup snuggled up closer to Johnny, dozing like a newborn as the streams of tears on her cheeks began to dry. He was so warm and cozy, and the drowsy sound of his gentle song was helping to turn her calm into slumber. And soon, she remembered something. 

Her sisters were snoring in bed as soft moonlight drifted into the triplets' room. She hadn't wanted to go to bed so darn early, making a rather adamant scene at bedtime to state her point to her father. But instead of the expected scolding, the Professor met his brunette daughter's obstinacy with unruffled amusement. Even as she continued yelling, he calmly picked her up, carried her into the bedroom and began to rock her back and forth, softly crooning a medley of old pop standards to her. Like a hypnotist's watch, the father's sweet music soon soothed the savage beast and she was napping happily in his embrace.   
Buttercup would never admit it, but she loved it when he did that. 

"Daddy…"  
Johnny looked down at her. She was on the very brink of a deep and restful sleep. For once, her brow was unknotted by frowns and her eyes were closed and tranquil. In the fractured glow of the city lights her peaceful face was beautiful. She looked like a little angel. That simple sight of a sleeping child aroused something in the petulant teenager that he'd never felt before: a need to nurture. This little one was depending on him to help find her way in an unfamiliar world and guard her from all the monsters that were after her. There and then, he pledged that he would not let her down.   
"G'night, little angel." He whispered, setting her down on his bed and planting a kiss on her tiny cheek. 

The window pane smashed, deadly shards of glass flying all about the room. On a whistling ribbon of pink and black smoke flew Him, stonily determined to earn his long-delayed kill. He snatched at the pair of youngsters with his monstrous claws. Taking Buttercup safe in his arms again, Johnny nimbly dodged him like a rabbit to a predatorial fox. With a shot of protective paternal adrenalin, he swiftly kicked the demon in the jaw and dashed out the broken window down the building's fire escape. Still clutching his injured face, Him sped after them. 

* * *

Sandy Keane rubbed her tired eyes, still trying hard to focus on the radar before her. It had been one of many, many long nights, but Team Eumenide was determined not to rest until Buttercup was found.   
"Anything?" The voice of Sara Bellum greeted her from the doorway.   
"Five hours and nothing," sighed Sandy.   
Sara approached the control panel to examine the screen with a sharp, observant eye. "I see," she said calmly.   
Exasperated and worn out from the depressingly fruitless search, Sandy turned to face her and sighed. "Honestly, Sara, I don't even know why I'm scanning these CP bearings. There's almost no chance that she's gone back _this_ far in the past."   
"Still," Sara replied hearteningly "there is a slight chance. And hopefully this way will be easier and quicker than Lord Alecto's ground search. Our main concern is finding her before he does."   
"But we don't even know where Alecto's infantrymen are…" Sandy lamented, "Maybe they've already located her and kidna-" 

A piercing blip from the machine broke the musty laboratory air. Both sets of eyes instantly snapped back to the radar screen.   
Sandy gasped, astounded by the almost unbelievable data before her.   
"I don't believe it…" she rubbed her eyes again. "…Spatial coords: thirty-two degrees equatorial lat north by two hundred thirteen degrees west … Fifth Dimensional CP bearings: minus two-four point six-three-five-oh-seven-six… Sara, we've found her!!"   
She struck a victorious fist in the air and the two tired women shared a joyous hug, all the while still gaping at the screen in delight.   
"I'll dispatch the boys right away!" 

* * *

"Put me down," Buttercup barked, "I can carry us faster!"   
A panting Johnny didn't comply. "I'll let him get me before he gets anywhere near you," he declared.   
He was dashing through the backstreets, trying to throw Him off their scent by taking as many sharp turns and twists in his path as possible. Johnny had the camouflage of the darkness and the familiarity of home turf on his side, and he was determined to once again shake off their dark uniformed hunter. 

They had a good lead, but Him's looming presence could still be felt somewhere behind them. Johnny had to take action further to lose the crazed demon in the enveloping night. Noticing an abandoned apartment block coming up on his right, he quickly veered down the side of the complex to find an entrance. 

"Push harder!"   
"I'm trying," Buttercup grunted as she leaned the full force of her supercharged body up against a grimy closed window. They heard the echoes of Him's hissing, viper-like speed somewhere in the distance.   
Grunting with urgency and panic, Johnny joined in the struggle and heaved at the old pane alongside the girl. Slowly, under creaking pressure, the glass frame gave way until it popped open, throwing the pair off balance and hurling them inside the unlit building. 

The voice of an unseen man echoed throughout the near-empty room. "Well, well, well. What have we here?"   
On the dirty floor, the little Puff could see a pair of dingy, weathered army boots step into her line of sight. Together, Johnny and Buttercup grit their teeth. Out of the frying pan and into the fire? 

Reluctantly, Buttercup's gaze crawled upwards along the figure that had addressed the two. Long legs, a lean physique, a scruffy mane of charcoal hair… and skin that was a shade of pasty pallid green.   
She looked into the man's face. There was no mistaking who it was.   
Ace of the Gangreen Gang. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	8. Midlogue

_ Time for the midlogue, hoorah.  
We'll finally get to see The Professor here (as in, the grown-up version). This grim little scene will also probably start to give you an idea about why I rated this story PG-13 ;)  
After this, on with Act II._

Zoe Rose: Thought I'd throw in Ace's first appearance at the end of the act to get the readers excited. I assure you he does have a solid role from here on in.

Hairy Gregory: Yes, all of the Gangreen Gang are teenagers. As for Buttercup, that little tidbit about Ms. Bellum's warning was post-amnesia. If that didn't make sense I promise you'll start to understand in the next few chapters (I feel like I'm jumping ahead of myself here!)

* * *

**MIDLOGUE**

_His babies had been taken away, so he lay on his bed clutching a damp stained pillowcase, staring at the dank cement walls. As he heaved with gradually receding sobs, the scratchy brown bedspread irritated his skin with each jerky movement. But he barely noticed-the mess and shards of the evening's dinner hurled angrily against the wall was evidence of his indignance to everything but his gaping despair and resentment.   
The man had grown languid and pale with inactivity, a body that was once healthy and robust now sickly and malnourished from both a physical and emotional starvation. His hair, once a flaxen mane gelled neatly out of his eyes had grown out in greasy matted tangles that hung haphazardly over his face, obscuring his vision. His skin was blotched, he had developed any number of nervous tics from months of unrest, and mangy, untrimmed whiskers grew on his jaw. Indeed the only recognisable feature on this shadow of a man was his ice blue eyes. But instead of being perceptive and penetrating, kind and warm, they had hardened like the frozen matter they resembled, now manic and untrusting of all. He was like a feral dog that had been kicked too many times, conditioned to know naught but anger. _

A convicted murderer dubbed mentally unsettled, he had been locked away here for three months now. Though to him, three decades might as well have passed. According to him, this penance for taking life was nothing compared to the life that had been sucked out of him by that ruthless shit-hole of a city known as Townsville. The person he had so guiltlessly killed was just another of its pack of uncaring denizens who had sucked the man dry without a second thought of the pain that they had caused-not only to himself, but the three babies they had wrenched from his arms, the innocent children so precious to him, yet a mere commodity to the rest of the town.   
Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. His little angels had been taken away, their family torn and destroyed by the selfishness of the town, torn and destroyed, torn and destroyed, torn and… 

He could feel someone else's presence in the cell.   
"Good evening, Professor…" purred a mockingly silken tone, "how have things been on the inside?"   
"Come to gawk?" Utonium asked bitterly, his eyes now making out the rakish silouhette of Him drifting in the shadows. He sadly reflected that even in a maximum security prison for the criminally insane, he was never safe from the ceaseless exploitations of the townspeople, even if this one was a little more aware of it. 

"Me? Gawk?" Him pouted charmingly at Utonium, projecting a halo of transparently phony innocence. "I just want to have a chat." Both knew, of course, that the demon was lying through his teeth. Professor Utonium had always been one of his favourite mortal toys to torment, and now in this state of such extreme instability his reactions would be more entertaining than ever. Him was eager to see just how far he could make the destroyed man bend to his will.   
He slinked into the dim light and reclined provocatively on the bed, next to the now sitting Utonium, defensively cross-legged and cross-armed. With his claw he disdainfully picked at the frayed blanket beneath him.   
"Must be a terrible bore to hang about in this dump," he sniffed, "why don't you ever take the time to do it up a little?"   
Utonium didn't speak or move, but silently narrowed his eyes at his unwanted companion.   
"Still, it's amazing what you can do to a room with a little knowhow. May I?" Him didn't wait for a response, and with a flick of his claw took to redesigning the drab cell. 

In a melting shower of black magic, the dark walls washed away, replaced by a soft white interior, bordered by plush navy carpet and sleek paintings framed on the flawless walls. In amongst tastefully harmonious décor were strewn a careless mess of children's toys and games, evident of the happy, cosy and communal atmosphere. The family room of Utonium's former family.   
The man's eyes opened wide as he saw Blossom and Buttercup gleefully stumble about the floor involved in a game of tag. To complete the illusion, Him added in Utonium himself as he had once been, watching the game from the kitchen with a frenetically joyful Bubbles sitting on his shoulders, bouncing up and down. "Nice, huh?"   
"Are you quite done?"   
There was a choke of agony in Utonium's voice for having to sit through Him's cruelty, but he was not drawn in for a second by the demon's tactless mind game. He must have thought Utonium was a moron to fall for such an obvious temptation. 

With an insouciant shrug, Him flicked his claw again, the nostalgic scene disappearing in a cloud of dust. "Clever boy," he remarked. "But you do know that I could bring it all back in less than the bat of an eyelid…" he stated matter-of-factly, "and want it or not, the offer's always open for you."   
"So I can become a servant to your sick little pastimes?" Utonium responded, scoffing. "I've been a slave for long enough without now becoming one to you." 

For some reason, Him reacted to this statement in a disgruntled, disturbingly sensitive manner. "Slave?" He spat. "What would you know about being a slave?" Utonium let out a violent sigh. "More than you, I'll bet. I've had to put up with the demands of those people-those people out there-" he pointed out of the barred cell window "since before I can remember. They looked upon my graces as a resource to exploit… just like my own children."   
Him listened to this with an unusual understanding. "Selfish bastards, aren't they?" Then he added with a characteristically impish grin, "that's what makes wreaking vengeance on them so much fun… if you were ever to do so yourself, I could-" 

With the suddenness of a Doberman turning on a disobedient kitten, Utonium's temper erupted. He growled and yanked the lightweight pixie up by the neck, rising from his position on the bed to ram him roughly up against the wall.   
The man was resolute. The devil trembled, an honest fear glowed in his green catlike eyes. It wasn't just Utonium's brute physical _strength that had startled him.   
"Listen, you mangy little faggot. You may be able to make snot-nosed toddlers cower in fear with your puppet shows, but I am not some sort of skivvy here to play Dominatrix with you. Your illusions don't scare me, your verbal machinations don't fool me. Now piss off before I take all my anger for the rest of Townsville out on you."   
He let him down again, the tension in the room remaining unsettlingly high. After a mindful silence, Him looked up at the man.   
"Very well," he said, "I see you're not one to be trifled with."   
Another silence as the two stood there.   
"You know…" Him ventured, "it's actually refreshing to find someone so… challenging." Here he smirked and winked saucily at Utonium.   
Incensed by his continued taunting, Utonium roared and went to pounce on the creature, but he landed instead on a poof of pink smoke as Him made a swift (and wise) escape. _

* * *

_The demon began to make his way back to his lair, eager to rest. That… exchange with the former Professor had been unusually tiring. Ordinarily, humans were such stupid, pliable beings. But that once gentle man, supposedly withering in his cell, was different. Him noted that the tragedy he had suffered so many months ago had affected him irreversibly, awoken a spark of something that had made him determined not to be dominated. Him still desired to be able to find a way to look inside that muddled and complex soul, if not for his usual malevolence, then for simple human fascination-- Utonium had always been an interesting creature to him. Could it have been that this traumatised man happened to be the strongest mortal Him had ever come across?   
Anger, he mused, was a powerful force indeed. _

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	9. ACT II, Chapter 1: Lord Alecto's Empire

_ Along with Act II now. Thought I might name the chapters from here on in. Don't ask me why, I just think it's nifty. :)  
And don't worry guys, I'll eventually get around to fully explaining poor Proffy-chan's situation back in ther present. That midlogue was just a teaser-ish little morsel of what's to come. _

* * *

The moment Buttercup recognised Ace's sharp sunglasses and toothy smirk, her anxiety instantly melted away in relief and joy.  
"Ace!" she cried, leaping up to hug him tight. "Am I glad to see you! What are you doing here!?"   
"I was gonna ask you the same question, Cuppo!" He scolded, still returning the hug with equal fervour. "Do you know how worried we've been about you?"   
"Welllll!…" Buttercup retorted defiantly, "I heard you guys'n Ms. Bellum talking about finding my dad with the time portal you stole from Alecto!"   
"Yeah, but-"

"Um," Johnny interrupted, "I hate to break up the love-in, but we've got a psychotic demon chasing us…"  
"Jesus! Alecto's men are tracking you already!?" Ace exclaimed. "Good thing Ms. K found you when she did!" With a sigh, Ace produced a strange makeshift control panel, bedecked with buttons, from his bulky utility belt.   
"Alright Cuppo, let's go back to where we came from."

Just as he was about to key in something to the remote, he felt resistance from the girl in his arms.   
"Wait!" she cried. "What about Johnny?" He noticed she was clinging onto the boy's sleeve.   
"Buttercup," Ace said matter-of-factly "you can't honestly think that I'm gonna take this _stranger_ home with us."   
"Johnny's no stranger, he's my friend!" Buttercup asserted, racked with the emotion of being torn from her companion. "And I'm not gonna leave him here to be caught by Him!"   
Ace tried to pull the child's hands off the startled teenager's sleeve. "It'll be safer if he just runs for it and stays in his own time-Buttercup, PLEASE let him go!" "No!" She wailed.

As the three stood there struggling, in burst Him, fully ready to pounce. Noticing Ace, his vicious grin widened. "Oooh, look what else I've found! You'll make a nice addition to the catch!" He exclaimed.   
He raised a claw in front of him, ready to expel his most terrible spell over Ace and Buttercup. Using his forbidden powers here was going to be more than made up for when Lord Alecto saw the prizes he had captured with it.

In the cold sweat of a life-or-death situation, Ace took action. He tried one last time to wrench Buttercup from Johnny's arm, but it was no use. Just as Him's jet of evil magic propelled towards them, Ace swiftly keyed in their home coordinates and the three burst into nothingness with a spark of electric energy.

* * *

Johnny collapsed on the ground in a daze of disorientation. He had no idea where on earth he was, or what the strange green boy's intentions were. Anxiety began to seep into him when he began to notice just how foreign and unnatural this place felt to him-it was like being an animal that had wandered far out of its own territory. 

"Buttercup!" Ace reprimanded harshly. "Why didn't you let him go? Now he's stuck here with us!"   
In true fashion, Buttercup retorted "I didn't want to leave him there, dummy! I told you before!"   
Ace tried to continue arguing, but it was pointless. Contesting that strong will of hers always was.   
"Alright. Well, we'll take him back to The Underground and see what Ms. B and Ms. K can do with him. Maybe we can divert Alecto's men long enough to take him back home somehow." 

Johnny was looking about himself, utterly stunned. The three were on a hillside on the outskirts of a large city. Part of the skyline was unmistakable, this was definitely Townsville. But much of it was also different. It looked like a huge chunk of the town had been carelessly demolished and rebuilt. It was all dirty and congested with rubble, yet sitting atop the mess was a series of sterile buildings that glinted in what little sunlight there was amidst all the smog. Industrial complexes with pollutant-spewing smokestacks, military buildings, and row after row of lofty, faceless stone skyscrapers, in the middle of which was a massive fortress of the same style. "What is this place?" The boy asked, bewildered.   
"This," Ace replied "Is the city of Townsville, and the year is 2003." 

* * *

The hillside that the three people were on was in fact part of the residential area for the city's civilians, but at first glance it may as well have been the squalor-infested slums of any third world megalopolis. Crumbling houses that would once have been sturdy and well kept lined dirty roads, swollen, fetid and foul-smelling sewers bordering either side. The lawns of the houses were dry and dusty, dead flowers and shrubs still lying in long disused flower beds.   
As they walked along the near-abandoned streets (the citizens of the town seemed not to like being out-of-doors), Johnny noticed how faded everything looked. Like the dead flowers that covered the people's gardens, this neighbourhood obviously used to be beautiful-only someone had sucked the life out of it.   
"Alecto's guards don't really keep tabs on this area of town," Ace explained, "there's no-one out here that he really cares about." 

No sooner had he uttered those words that the group heard the resonating sound of a rifle go off behind them. Turning, they saw three sober-suited foot soldiers at the end of the street.   
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" One cried. "All three of you are hereby under arrest in accordance with the commands of the great Lord Alecto!"   
"Damn it," Ace muttered under his breath, "the Fuzz!" 

Buttercup was not to be subdued. Finally back in her own time, where her powers were recognised and understood, she charged at the henchmen, ready to deal out her own brand of justice.   
"Buttercup, no!" Ace shrieked, looking on helplessly.   
She struck, landing a powerful kick to one foot soldier's face. Turning around to deal with the other two she met a ghastly and unexpected surprise. Using a trigger on his belt, one of the officers let loose a smooth, slender coil of metal rope. Like iron being drawn to a magnet, it clasped onto Buttercup's body and encased her like a strand of spider's web around a fly. She struggled, trying to free her arms, but it was all in vain.   
"Polyduranium fibroid," the head soldier, a lieutenant, grunted smugly. "Picked up by Alecto Laboratories from the late Mojo Jojo, and completely Powerpuff-proof!"   
He was answered with a solid fist to the cheek.   
Johnny disdainfully spat on the lieutenant, who was now flat on the ground. "Let her go!" He demanded, and just as promptly was jumped on and restrained by the other two, a small military dagger being shoved into the small of his back should he object. 

"Oh, for the love of God," Ace sighed, and grudgingly approached the skirmish armed with his nothing but a pair of brass knuckles.   
Swooping into the fray, he leapt upon the man restraining Johnny with a whirling kick to the head. The lieutenant had since gotten back to his feet and tried to retaliate, but the green-skinned street boy was too swift, anticipating his moves and delivering a potent and tricky counterattack.   
The fisticuffs continued, an unfair advantage going to the sneaky street-wise Ace. Johnny knelt down to where Buttercup was, unwrapping the wire from around her. "You okay, Squirt?"   
"Yeah…" the girl answered, a little disappointed at being drawn out of the combat so early.   
"C'mon, let's go!" Ace yelled, dragging Johnny and Buttercup up to race away. The soldiers had been given enough time to retrieve their rifles from the holsters on their backs and were getting ready to fire.   
The three hurried down the road, legs pumping. Ace brought out a crude gun from his belt, firing blindly back at their attackers as he retreated. 

They continued running, the bruised and battle-worn soldiers too sore and tired to keep up.   
"I though you said Alecto didn't keep tabs on this place." Johnny heaved, thoroughly out-of-breath.   
Ace replied, equally exhausted, "he doesn't usually. His men just patrol through here sometimes. And now," he added darkly, "they know we've got Buttercup. But I guess that means your own time might be safe enough to go home to now." 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	10. Chapter 2: The Gangrene Gang

Finally, they came to stop at a neglected general store, whose windows and doors were boarded over. Warily looking about, Ace slipped down the side of the old structure (which was made narrow and inconspicuous by a large block of units lying next to it), and urged the other two to follow.   
In the tiny back alley was a rusty, disused-looking metal door. Still glancing over his shoulder, he approached it and knocked.   
"Password?" Came a raspy voice from inside.   
"'My Name Ain't Mister'," Ace smoothly answered.   
The heavy door creaked open, and another green-skinned boy greeted the three into the dim. This one was short and sinuous, with thin, needly, reptilian features.   
"You did it, man!" He cried, giving Ace a triumphant bear hug. "I knew you'd find her!"   
"Did ya ever doubt it when I had guys like you backin' me up?" Ace answered, thumping a friendly hand on his companion's back.   
Johnny noticed three other boys with the same light green skin standing about the room, making five in all.   
"That's the Gangreen Gang," Buttercup explained. "They're a part of our team." "Team?" Johnny repeated, growing more unsure and overwhelmed by all the shocking new information he had had to take on board. 

The old abandoned general store turned out to be a covert outpost, a gathering point for those whose actions may not have pleased Lord Alecto. It was safely hidden from the public eye in a location that was mostly out of the crime-lord's reach.   
The shortest boy pointed to Johnny. "Who is el idiota?" He asked curtly in a coarse Hispanic brogue.   
"Some kid Buttercup picked up in the past," Ace replied casually, dismissing Johnny like some expendable comic relief. "We'll return him home when we get the chance. What did you say your name was, Squirt?"   
Here the others snickered.   
Johnny put his hands on his hips with a look of irritated pride. "My name's Johnny, and I'm not a squirt, you stooge! I'm probably the same age as you!"   
"Oooh," Ace taunted, "Big words from a little man!" He drew a hand across the top of Johnny's head demonstrating their height difference.   
The others now indulged in a hearty laugh at the boy's expense, Buttercup included.   
Then, good-naturedly, Ace announced "C'mon, let's get going before Ms. K starts to worry. Snake, man, you bring up the rear for us, okay?"   
The reptilian boy nodded congenially, seeming glad to have been picked for the assignment.   
"Where are we going _now? _" Johnny wanted to know, but his new status as the group's target for adolescent teasing prevented anyone from providing him with an answer. 

* * *

Leading the troupe into a dingy, almost pitch black room, Ace knelt down to what was now a concrete floor. With the help of a particularly large and stout member of the Gang, he lifted up a hefty gutter grate.   
"Eeewww…" Johnny blurted out, "we're going into the _sewer? _" No wonder these boys had such sickly skin!   
"Move it, Squirt," Snake barked, pushing him down the slimy ladder as the others went.   
One of the boys flicked on a flood lamp. Johnny now saw that they were standing on the edge of a pool of putrid sewage that flowed along a long, low tunnel. "Let's go," Ace announced, and in single file the six teenage boys tiptoed precariously along the edge of the river, taking care not to step in the smelly liquid. Buttercup effortlessly hovered over the sludge, a smile on her face that was equal parts ease and smugness.   
"Show off," Johnny grumbled. 

After what seemed like hours stumbling along in the stinky darkness, taking countless twists and turns in the pipes that had been memorised perfectly by the green quintet, the group finally came to an open chamber in the sewer system. A huge doorway, resembling a porthole, was situated in one high wall. As they approached it, Johnny noticed a small rectangular keypad to its side. Ace punched in a stream of numbers and the door shuddered open with a resonating metallic twang.   
What they stepped into was a welcome change from the sewer-a large and well lit underground chamber with a tiled floor. It was musty with the feel of abandonment, but at least it was somewhat clean. It was not featureless by far: in amongst a lot of other bulky objects that cluttered the floor Johnny spied what looked like public benches, turnstiles and ticket booths. In fact, it almost looked like…

"Pokey Oaks Train Station?" Johnny repeated.   
"Alecto shut down mass transit," said Ace, "in fact he cemented over all the entrances to the metropolitan stations. That's good for us, since it gives us a lot more security." Johnny raised an eyebrow. "You're quite the authority on this Alecto guy, aren't ya?" he noted almost rudely.   
"I gotta be," the green boy retorted. "It's for the good of the team."   
"Oh right, your 'gangly gang' or whatever," Johnny muttered.   
"Team Eumenide," Ace corrected pointedly, not taking any humour at all in Johnny's indifferent attitude. "C'mon, I think there's some people you should meet." 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	11. Chapter 3: Who am I?

_ Hairy Gregory: Myup, you were right, here's the introduction to the resistance leaders as you guessed. Hope this chapter's satisfying enough, I feel it should be..._

Bella12: Thanks for reviewing and taking an interest, doll, but you didn't need to submit critique for every chapter, not this far in. One does the trick. But thanks again, anyway. :)

* * *

The disused old subway station, or The Underground as it was known to its inhabitants, was the well hidden HQ for a resistance movement to Lord Alecto's tyranny. Townsville had long since been declared a war zone, and though the American government had ranted and raved to the mass media about bringing the crime-lord down, in truth very little had been done, or even agreed upon by congress. What outside resistance there was had been promptly quelled by Alecto's firm iron stronghold. It was up to the people of Townsville themselves to challenge their cruel overlord.   
The Mayor had been missing for some months now, and for some months his cunning secretary had been taking action. Assisted by the scientific knowhow of her old friend Sandy Keane she had sneakily gathered together all the resources and manpower she could to work on raising the much needed rebellion. She called the group Team Eumenide, based upon the Greek myth of the monstrous Furies that eventually became honey-faced bringers of mercy. Its two most valued commodities were Professor Utonium's old time portal that had been recovered from the clutches of Lord Alecto, and the five teenage boys who, upon seeing their home town become a frightening dictatorship, had given up their petty crimes to join in the fight for freedom. 

The 'laboratory' that the scientifically endowed Sandy (or Ms. K, as she was affectionately dubbed by the younger members) spent most of her time in was little more than a staggered collection of what gadgets and machines Team Eumenide's foot soldiers could acquire. But incomplete as it was, it had still offered the team an advantage in their missions of hostage rescues and sabotage. Over the past week, all the tracking equipment had been dedicated to finding the bewildered Buttercup, who thanks to a terrible accident had only come out of a coma a few weeks previous and was still suffering from a bout of amnesia. 

Currently, the little Powerpuff was sitting in a relieved Sandy's arms in the team's lab.   
"Buttercup," Sara began, giving the girl an appropriately stern maternal look, "when you used the time portal to go and find your father, did you have any idea what year you ended up in?"   
She shook her head.   
"You went all the way back to 1978. When you heard Sandy and I talk about retrieving the Professor from the past, we meant going only two or three years back." She explained. "No wonder you didn't find him, back then he would have been no older than sixtee-"

She was interrupted by Ace, flanked by Snake, appearing in the lab's doorway.   
"Um… Ms. B, Ms. K…" He said through anxious gritted teeth, "there's something I should show you. See, Buttercup picked up something in the past that she, er, insisted on taking with her."   
Sara's shoulders drooped. "Oh, no. What is it, a stray puppy?"   
"Uh…"  
From behind Ace, Johnny stepped out shyly and waved awkwardly at the group.   
"Oh my God… Johnny!?" 

It couldn't be!   
The boy was struck dumb with the twisted recognition of his old classmates.   
"Red? Sandy?"   
"Wait a minute…" Snake interjected, "you know this guy?"   
"This is… er…" Sandy fumbled, trying to find an appropriate way to introduce the boy.   
"My name is Johnny Utonium," Johnny announced proudly, "and these two ladies are-er, _were_ my high school classmates."   
Ace's eyes widened over the brim of his shades. "Utonium!?" he exclaimed. "Then he's…"  
Sandy nodded grimly. "Buttercup must not have recognised him because of her illness."   
"Recognised me?" Johnny repeated. "What do you mean, 'recognised'?"   
"Sit down, John," Sara proffered, "there's something we need to tell you…"

* * *

"Her WHAT!?"   
"Yes Johnny," Sandy confirmed gently, "you are Buttercup's father-to-be." 

Johnny couldn't believe it. He sat heavily and stiffly, staring blankly at the jade-eyed tyke who was clinging to Sandy's sleeve, racked with the same surprise and disbelief. "No way!" Buttercup cried. "You mean _he_ was the guy I was looking for the _whole_ time!?"   
"Heeey, that means I become a professor in the end!" Johnny realised, a huge grin appearing on his lips. "So if I'm the father of Buttercup and her sisters," he asked, the grin turning into a lustful leer, "then who's their mother, huh?"   
"You'll find _that_ out when you get there, young man." Retorted Sandy with a rather stern tone. 

Just then, a beautiful, pale-skinned woman with wild black hair and Rubenesque curves strided into the lab, pointedly ignoring the group and heading for a control panel, looking at a clipboard in her hands.   
"Wow, I hope it's _her! _" Johnny drooled, and was met with a swift clip around the ear by Sandy.   
"Sedusa," Sara called to her, "we found Buttercup."   
The woman looked stoically over to the others, noticing the recovered child with detached interest. "Good." She replied flatly.   
"And, uh, we also found the Professor… though perhaps a few decades too early…"  
Sedusa regarded Johnny, her apathy then becoming something colder. "So you did," she noted with narrowed eyes, her unfriendly, piercing gaze chilling Johnny's insides. Thankfully, she turned back to her work. 

"Don't worry about Sedusa," Sandy told him, "she usually keeps to herself."   
"Yeah," Snake said "Most _fungus_ spends more time out and about than her."   
"And they've got more friends!" Ace added.   
As the youngsters laughed at the cheap shot, Sedusa pursed her lips and quietly stormed out of the room.   
"Boys!" Sara barked angrily, hands on hips.   
"Sorry, Ms. B, we were only kidding." Ace alleged with a gracious smile. 

"So," Johnny assessed, "I see that you two are a big part of this whole resistance thing," he nodded to Sara and Sandy, "and one of my kids is here… but what about me? Where's my future self? Am I out saving Townsville or something?"   
Uncomfortable looks passed around the room. Sad, mournful eyes met and eventually fell. The reluctant silence was met yet again with Johnny's naïve curiosity.   
"Well?" he insisted. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 

_ The next chapter is gonna explain it all, and drop as many bombshells as you care to count. Can you feel the suspense, people? ^_~_


	12. Chapter 4: Utonium's fate

_ Hairy Gregory: Ah, reactions... you have NO idea how hard this story has been to write because of all the shocking things revealed to its characters! But believe you me, Johnny is gonna have a LOT more to worry about than merely finding out Buttercup is his future daughter... ;)_

PinkPuff514: I'll be explaining a lot in the coming chapters, this entire act is pretty much devoted to finding out what's happened to Townsville in the present. It'll make sense. I think. ^^;;

* * *

It had been about eighteen months since the Powerpuff Girls' final clash with Mojo Jojo. The mentally unhinged prodigy had perfected the Polyduranium fibroid he'd developed into a series of devastating weapons-all capable of harming Townsville's young champions. An unfortunate Buttercup and Bubbles had met the full force of this new arsenal, the former being so severely injured that she fell into a coma that would last over a year. And the latter, the innocent little blue-eyed Bubbles, whose loved ones claimed to be the baby of the triplets, fell to her untimely death. 

The Utonium house instantly fell into silence and darkness. On many long evenings, Blossom and her father would sit on the couch, clutching one another desperately tight, muted and immobilised by their grief.   
Then, one morning, Utonium refused Blossom permission to go to school. The picture in his mind of a dangerous, predatorial world that would snatch his last child away from him had been allowed to fester and grow in his mind amidst the mournful gloom of his home. The little girl objected, frightened by her father's protectiveness. But he would not be disobeyed. He went to grab her with angry eyes, but after a struggle she finally broke free of his possessive grasp, finding refuge with her trusted teacher, Ms. Keane. 

A month later, after much activity from the authorities after similar incidents, the court ruled Professor Utonium a mentally unstable and unfit parent. They handed joint custody of Blossom and the still comatose Buttercup over to the motherly Keane and her friend, the reliable Ms. Bellum. This plunged Utonium into an even deeper, darker grief, leaving his house empty-all he was left with now were his thoughts of heartbreak and betrayal. And, out of these, a new reaction to the tragedy: anger. Unrelenting anger. 

The dark nights, now spent alone, let this resentment bubble away unchecked. Why the courts had not decided to send him to a psychiatric clinic was unknown, but the broken man clearly needed some kind of intervention, or at least some comfort and company from friends. On his own, left to drown in his most negative emotions for months on end, he was slowly going mad.   
He blamed Townsville itself for his daughters' downfall and the break-up of their family. Townsville, he reckoned, had demanded too much of the four of them, especially the girls who had had to risk their lives for others' safety. His hatred grew, and began to focus on the individual who had dealt Buttercup and Bubbles those terrible blows in their final days of peace and happiness: Mojo Jojo. 

A week later, the city newspapers indicated this hatred on their front pages-Mojo had been found dead in his prison cell, killed by a poisoned dart to the neck. It didn't take long for the police to track down the culprit. Utonium had repaired his old 'super-hero' hard-suit to break into the compound in the dead of the night and commit the ghastly deed, which the raving man, being dragged away in handcuffs, claimed was just desserts for the one who had murdered his baby girl. 

Shut away in an asylum for the criminally insane, his anger and resentment continued to rise, killing once and for all the kind and benevolent scholar that was. Then, something curious happened. A mischievous Him, eager to prod and tease Utonium in his wretched state, visited him and was soon amazed by the man's potent emotions. As the imp saw it, that anger was strength. Utterly enchanted, he visited the man again and again, eager to listen to the story he had to tell, the one that had sparked such ferociousness. 

Soon, not surprisingly, Him helped Utonium to break out, and under the demon's supernatural protection it was impossible for the police to find him. The man, assisted by his new sympathiser, had a new agenda: revenge. Revenge at Townsville for the death of his family. They began as inner city bandits, Him soon drawing a small band of young delinquent outcasts (who were also victims of the city's heartlessness) to them with his hypnotic powers. He imbued them with freakish combat abilities, and soon they became the most powerful gang in the city. 

But as far as Utonium was concerned, it was all still small potatoes. Terrorism was his next goal, and soon his group was threatening the peaceful city with stolen weaponry and explosives. The group grew and grew, recruiting new members as it went, and soon Utonium had the clout to demand as much military arsenal and scientific personnel as he wanted from the city. He was now fully in power, and Him's supernatural services were no longer needed, but he kept his loyal servant on as the captain of his elite soldiers. This team managed to capture Blossom and bring her to Utonium, an emotional and bizarre reunion taking place for father and daughter. 

But yet to be achieved was the takeover of Townsville. Utonium's ultimate goal was to make life for the city as miserable as it had been for him, and he swiftly saw to it that his vengeance would be complete. In one fell swoop that took even the intelligence bureaus by surprise, he kidnapped the Mayor and had most of his cabinet assassinated, using the ensuing panic to take charge with his small yet vicious army. Townsville quickly and helplessly fell under his rule, Him's supernatural abilities coming into play one last time to reconstruct the city into his own personal fortress. Finally, he had fully succeeded in spreading the terror and devastation he had felt so long ago in his lonely cell. He was Lord and Master of the city that, for so long, had seemed to master _him_. And as such, he took on a new title appropriate for the role: the mythical Ancient Greek Fury that bore his same anger and thirst for vengeance.   
He had called himself Lord Alecto. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	13. Chapter 5: Patriarch

_

More Powerpuff Girls in this chapter! Well, one more anyway.

_

* * *

The bottom, sides and top had all fallen out of Johnny's world. _He_ was Alecto. He couldn't believe it. He just _couldn't_ believe it. Sure, sometimes he could get a tad malicious, but to think he was capable of something so… it was unfathomable. 

Sandy and Ace had told him the story after settling the boy in and having a measly dinner of canned beans and black coffee. They had tried to break it as gently as possible to him, but foretelling someone's tragic future was impossible to sugar-coat. They had deeply wanted to keep the horrible truth from him, but Sara insisted that he should know why his home was in such a frightening state. Besides, while he resided in the future it was better that he heard the news from a trusted, sympathetic Eumenide member rather than anyone sinister. 

He was brooding in the sewers just outside HQ, feeling barren. This was a future he could do nothing about. His existence here, sitting, looking about, breathing in and out, was for no other purpose than to aid that psycho Alecto, the man he was destined to become. He was a dense, cold, ineffective lump. 

He heard the sharp echoing click of a pair of shoes approaching him. He regarded them with little interest and didn't look up.   
It was Sedusa who sat down next to him. "Bellum wants you to come back inside." Johnny was quiet.   
"I take it they told you the, uh, little secret about Alecto." She grinned like a hyena, seeming to take pleasure in the teenager's pain.   
Finally he spoke, his voice dry and flat.   
"I still can't believe it."   
Sedusa snorted. "I can," she contested, then leaned in closer to Johnny. "I know you, Utonium, I knew you before you became Alecto. You were a paranoid, selfish, prejudiced little bastard then. And you're one now, too… the both of you!" She cackled.   
Johnny would have usually shot off a fiery retort to such an insult, but now, he didn't see much of a point.   
All he did was narrow his eyes at the woman, then turn away, gazing into the darkness. 

* * *

_"See-saw, Marjory Daw,   
Johnny shall have a new master.   
He shall earn but a penny a day  
Because he can't work any faster..." _

"I don't like that rhyme, father."   
Blossom's voice was quiet and receding-nothing like the clear, confident tone it had once been. It still hurt her father to hear it, he believed it to be the saddening result of the city's demands on her in her superhero days. Of course, he would have hated himself if he had acknowledged what had really driven her to this state.   
"Shall we read another, then, darling?" He asked sweetly, gazing down at his dead-eyed daughter as she sat on his lap.   
She nodded silently, avoiding looking at him. 

Alecto and Blossom were reclining upon a mountain of plush toys in the little girl's windowless 'playroom'. It was in truth a prison for Blossom, one that she was seldom allowed to leave. Modelled after the Powerpuff Girls' old bedroom, it was located within the deepest, most well-guarded recesses of Alecto's fortress. It was his favourite room in all the chambers of his impressive mini-empire, and he regarded it with almost religious honour. It was the only place where, rather than focusing on his conquest, he was regarded simply as being Daddy. He grew more and more joyful by the day to know that he would soon be adding another little captive to this peculiar shrine…

The reinforced double doors clanged open. In strode a gun-wielding guard, flanked by an anxious looking Him.   
"Just the demon I wanted to see," Alecto muttered sardonically, and frowned.   
"Your men told me all about the hunt for my daughter, Captain."   
He stood up to his full height, shadowing the imp like a great black dormant volcano. Him bit his lip.   
"Am I correct in saying that you made use of those powers of yours?"   
Silence.   
"And that you used them to help my younger self fight _your own men_ and escape!?"   
Him warily moved to speak, but was thwarted by Alecto's hand seizing his collar, yanking him closer to the crime lord's menacing glare.   
"Are you stupid or something!?" he seethed. "For your sake, I hope those exertions were in the interest of bringing my little Buttercup home to me."   
The demon took a deep breath. "Sir, we tried to capture her no less than three times… but she and Johnny-your younger self, I mean, escaped our grasp."   
Him tried to ignore Alecto's fingers tightening even further on his collar.   
"…And now the both of them are back in the present, under the protection of Team Eumenide. Oh, forgive me my Lor-"

Blossom cowered as she watched her father's fury erupt, kicking Him ruthlessly to the floor.   
"I gave you a simple task to fulfil-and instead of do what you're told, you deliberately DISOBEY ME??" He roared, his voice bounding out the open doors and down the concrete-and-metal hallways. "I warn you, boy…"  
"Please, my Lord!" Him begged, contending Alecto's anger by looking helpless, holding an arm over his quivering form. "There was nothing I could do! Every time I came close to capturing her, that boy would always stand in my way… and… no matter what your orders were… I couldn't find it in myself to hurt him. Teenager or not, he is you. I couldn't dream of ever causing harm to you… my Lord." 

Alecto's face softened as he stared down at his pitiful lapdog of a Captain. He drew in a strained sigh and calmed himself. Admittedly, Him's desire to protect him in all his forms was rather touching, if only in a twisted way.   
"Well, I can't say I'm too pleased with you at the moment. But…"   
Here he knelt down to the floor, and Him felt the smooth, cold black leather of his glove as he grasped the demon's heart-shaped face in his hand. "You have always been so loyal to me."   
Him's heart skipped a beat for the unexpected praise from his Master. 

Alecto rose and began to pace the floor, in the same prowling feline fashion he always did when posed with a problem.   
"Perhaps there is a chance to redeem yourself. You say my teenage counterpart has travelled to the present with Buttercup?"   
Him nodded.   
"We may have ourselves a useful middleman, then."   
"But my Lord, he's with Team Eumenide! They'll most likely guard him from us as closely as they guard Buttercup. We couldn't reach him even if we tried."   
Sitting back down on the plush toys and placing Blossom on his knee again, he smiled restfully.   
"It won't be too hard," he answered. "Trust me, if we keep a vigil… young Johnny will more or less come to _us_." 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	14. Chapter 6: Sedusa

_

Sorry for lack of updates. Very busy. Tired. Respond to reviews next chapter. Thanks. 

_

*PLONK* Zzzzzzz...

* * *

That night, Johnny did not sleep well at all. Like the others, his sleeping quarters were set up in one of the cabins of an abandoned passenger train. Lying uncomfortably in the dark, he tried to fend off the empty feelings of his spoiled, Alecto-tainted destiny in order to get some rest, but the effort just filled his head with further conflict and frustration. A hopeful, irrational part of him mused that this was all just a vivid nightmare that he would wake from the moment he closed his eyes. But peaceful repose was not to be had. 

Getting up for some fresh air and to at least try to clear his head, he noticed that The Underground remained active even in the middle of the night. Snake was manning the lab's radars and surveillance (an enthused favour to Ace, no doubt), and Sedusa was shuffling about the halls of the train station with various supplies and weapons.  
Johnny grit his teeth upon seeing her approach, and tried his best to avoid eye contact. As he passed, she sneakily stuck out a stilettoed foot and tripped the boy up. As he glared at her indignantly, Sedusa simply giggled: a nasty, high pitched twittering sound that aroused at least a small part of Johnny's wearied ire. 

Reaching the cemented-over stairs of the subway entrance, he noticed Ace leaning casually on the steps, sipping from a can of standard-issue beer. He had witnessed Sedusa's prank and was currently sporting a bemused grin.   
"Not sparing you any dignity, is she?" He scoffed, patting the space beside him in invitation.   
"What's _with_ her?" Johnny scowled.   
"It's a long story," Ace replied simply. "Listen, um, thanks for looking after Buttercup. The guys and I may not have shown our appreciation earlier, but…"  
Johnny nodded in understanding.   
After a suitable silence, the boy asked "How did you and your gang… you know… end up fighting Alecto? You don't seem to be the type who would."   
Ace took a casual swig from his can. "Yeah, I've never been much of a golden-boy type. Fighting Alecto's sort of a repentance for some things I've done that I'm not proud of."   
"Crime?" Johnny asked.   
"More than crime," Ace replied, "I guess it was just who I was, my attitude. There were things I didn't appreciate until I was forced to fight for them."   
Johnny thought of the way Ace had acted towards Buttercup, Snake, and his fellow team members.   
"You seem pretty gracious from where I stand." Johnny noted.   
Ace smiled at Johnny, warm eyes reaching him from the frame of Ace's shades.   
"Thanks, Squirt."   
The two of them sat quietly for the next few minutes, Ace enjoying the rare moment of peace and relaxation, Johnny grateful for the soothing company that helped to ease his grim mood.   
"So you wanna hear why Sedusa is such a hard-ass bitch?"   
Johnny laughed and nodded his head. 

* * *

It was the spring of 1979, and all around the world archaeologists were raving about the find of the century. On the outskirts of Athens, Greece, a team of building contractors had stumbled upon a hitherto undiscovered ancient ruin. Upon further excavation from experts at the local university, it was found to be a temple to Hades: the Ancient Greek God of the Underworld. Before, it had been accepted by historians that the Ancient Greeks had never built any places of worship for this dark, mysterious deity, so the top scientists, scholars and professors had been flown in from all over the world to examine it. 

One of these was the handsome Professor Felix Pontmercy, a Greek archaeology expert from Townsville, USA. Enthusiastically digging away at the ruin during a lonesome lunch hour, he happened to come across a deep stone vault containing nothing but a beautifully carved marble sarcophagus. Expecting it to contain some lost treasure of Classical culture, he frantically pried off the lid…

What Pontmercy unleashed was indeed a marvel to behold, but it was nothing that he would have imagined in his wildest dreams. From out of the vessel, in a gush of supernatural mist, stepped a beautiful nymph that put the voluptuous sculptures of the Greek masters to shame. A daughter of Hades himself, she had been encased there by a cult of priests some three thousand years previous. 

The nymph begged with him for mercy and protection, and still awestruck by how lovely she was, Pontmercy agreed to be her keeper. In the months that she resided with him, hidden from his science colleagues, the nymph feel deeply in love with the charming professor. A year later, she bore him twins: one boy and one girl, two beautiful, peculiar looking children that were half human and half divine.   
A few more happy months passed for the young family, but soon the time came when Pontmercy was called back to Townsville for his work. Back at home he already had a wife and children, and just as quickly as they had met, he abandoned the nymph and their two infant offspring. 

Surviving on the outskirts of society, the nymph tried to keep up a human guise, living in downtown Athens and supporting her beloved children. They grew, nurtured by mutual sibling love and the adoration of their mother. But in the twins' nineteenth year, the tired nymph, still heavy from her broken heart, died a sad and untimely death.   
Brother and sister were both shaken by the loss. Still grieving, they began to turn their attentions to the man who was responsible for destroying the nymph: their father, Professor Felix Pontmercy.   
Their grandfather's baneful blood began to boil in their veins, and the two grew angry and thirsty for revenge. They not only wished to be the scourge of their neglectful father, but also to the city that harboured him. 

However, once they reached Townsville, they discovered that their father too had died. Uncontrollable with rage and frustration, they began random strings of crimes and misdemeanours. The twin sister, now a beautiful woman with charms to rival her late mother, took to seducing and deceiving the powerful men of the city to her advantage, dubbing herself with the Gorgon-esque title of Sedusa. Her brother, equally beautiful and deceptive, was more interested in striking fear and distrust into the citizen's hearts. Aided by his unholy reputation, he took on the guise of his grandfather Hades. But in fearful respect for his powers, the people of Townsville only referred to the young imp as 'Him'. 

When the criminal Utonium revealed his tragic story to Him, the demon was deeply touched. The poor man had suffered the same kind of loss that he and Sedusa had: they lost their mother, Utonium lost his daughters, and both thanks to the people of Townsville. This empathy lead to Him's loyalty to Utonium-he believed that the wild-eyed genius was the path to the vengeance that he and his sister wished to exact, but Sedusa was not so easily won over. As far as she saw it, Him was going down the same fatal path as their mother: he was being sucked in by the charisma and supposed strength of a ruthless Townsville Professor-and the outcome could only be disaster. 

Sedusa tried to pry Him from the power-hungry Utonium, claiming that the man would end up deceiving and abandoning him, but it was useless. Him was now obsessed with the man, practically worshipping him as his-and his late mother's-saviour.   
The siblings fell out, and Sedusa fell into despair for her beloved brother. Then one night, she spotted the Gangreen Gang returning to HQ from one of Team Eumenide's sabotage missions. Approaching them, she explained herself and requested membership. She yearned to fight back against the man that, so much like her father, had bended her twin brother to his will and made him a slave. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	15. Chapter 7: A Resource to be Exploited

_

Final chapter of Act II!  
Thanks for the reviews people. It's heartening to think I can raise a reaction from such discriminating tastes. ;) I've still got a few more bombshells to drop here, but I'm sure no-one will mind. (Actually, with all that I've revealed so far, I'm surprised you all haven't been desensitised!) Here's hoping you'll stay involved. Thanks again!

_

And one more thing: It'll be a while before Act III starts, mainly considering that I haven't even written the damn thing yet. Give it a week or so.

* * *

It was the next afternoon, and the group were sitting around The Underground's makeshift 'conference table'. Now, as Johnny risked a glance at the black haired she-demon sitting across from him, he looked upon the spite in her eyes in a new light. No wonder she hated him so. He-or at least his older counterpart-was responsible for taking her brother away from her.   
So many broken families, so much misery, Johnny mused sadly. The story of the twins only served to feed his feelings of helplessness and shame at being the young Alecto. 

"For what it's worth," he announced to the rest of the team weakly, "I'm sorry for everything Lord Alecto has done. I mean, I know I can't be held accountable just yet, but…"  
Buttercup gave him a light, friendly punch in the shoulder. "Forget it," she answered him. "As far as I'm concerned, you're _not_ the guy my dad's become. You're way too cool."   
Sara walked over to Johnny's seat, placing a supportive hand on his other shoulder. "She's right, you know. In fact, there is a very real way for you to regain control over your own future."   
Sandy looked up from her mug of coffee. She stared at her red-haired companion, and the two shared a silent discussion with their eyes.   
"Are you sure you should be giving him our proposal just now?" Sandy asked quietly.   
Sara replied with a matter-of-fact look that said: "It's probably the only chance we'll have to defeat Alecto. We need to use him."   
Johnny slightly perked up. "Control my future?" he parroted, perking up at the promise of hope. "How?"   
"Well…" Sara began slowly, "the reason that Buttercup went into the past was that she heard us discussing the idea of retrieving you, or at least your older self."   
Johnny's brow furrowed.   
"You see, after racking our brains over how to beat Alecto, we came to the conclusion that the only person capable of defeating… or even _outwitting_… a genius like Professor John Utonium…"  
"…Was Professor John Utonium." Sandy finished. 

"What are you saying?" Johnny questioned.   
"Are you stupid or something?" Sedusa butted in. "They're _asking_ you to use that brain of yours and find a way to kill Alecto." 

The bombshell that Sedusa dropped exploded like a nuclear shockwave of tense silence. All the team members gaped at her, appalled by her insensitive bluntness. Johnny's ice blue eyes froze over like a still, Arctic winter's night. Lips trembling, he gazed into thin air, what slender grip he still had on his peace-of-mind being knocked from its ledge.   
"You…" he breathed, "…you're asking me to _kill myself!?_"   
"Johnny… please, it's not quite as simple as that." Sandy attested, an apologetic look in her eyes.   
"But that's what you want me to do, isn't it! When all is said and done I'm just a tool to be used in my own downfall!" A blasting avalanche of rage and resentment began to fall upon Team Eumenide.   
"Johnny, if you'd just let us explain…" Sara cried.   
"You don't have to sugar-coat it!" Johnny stormed. "I see now just how much I'm worth to this friggin' city!"   
Rising from his seat, he angrily kicked his chair over. "I'm just a RESOURCE to be EXPLOITED!!"   
Without another moment lost, the furious young man marched swiftly out of the room.   
"Johnny!" Buttercup exclaimed in her distressed lion-cub voice, but even before the echo of her call died away, the startled Team Eumenide heard the booming slam of HQ's metal porthole door bang closed. 

* * *

He raced through the tunnels of the sewer, not caring which turns he took. Fatigue eventually slowed him down, and now he wandered wherever the dark concrete path would take him. Eventually, after what was most probably hours, he happened upon a pipe that lead outside into the city's harbour. Clambering out of it onto the dirty rocks at the polluted water's edge, he sat down. Exhausted, traumatised and distressed beyond belief, the lost boy cried. 

So this is what it felt like to be truly alone. To literally have _nobody_ that you could trust or count on, just treacherous enemies on every road you took. And to think there had been times when he had whinged to his parents about 'loneliness', simply because some girl or another had refused to date him.   
His thoughts drifted further back home, recalling for the first time everything he had as a blessing of freedom and happiness and love. He might not have been a star pupil at a top genius academy, but at least he had the liberty to make choices for himself. The possibility he had pondered of becoming an embittered old science teacher like Waldren had merely been a worst case scenario. He had had a _chance_ at a happy future. But now-he had no such luxury. The evidence of the hardened monster he was to become was all around him. And there was no way to fight it. He doubted if even the suicide proposed by Team Eumenide would have any effect upon him. 

Through his tears, he stared down at the murky water and yearned to go home. 

There was a slight scuffling noise behind him. In his misery, he didn't notice it, and even if he had he would have dismissed it as something like a scavenging seagull. But a few seconds later, he felt something tighten around his neck.   
Someone was restraining him. He tried weakly to fight back, but he was dead tired. With almost no difficulty, the unseen stranger hoisted the boy up and shoved a sponge soaked in chloroform into his face. 

And everything went black. 

* * *

To Be Continued. . . 


	16. ACT III, Chapter 1: Face the Future

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
Yup, I'm back working on this thing after so many months. Thanks for being patient. I'd like to give some shout-outs to the people who have been so supportive while I started work on the comic version of this story (which you can find on my homepage! /plug #1): Kasumi, who is just a total sweetums and an amazing artist (check out her own fics "Inner Turmoil" and "Heightened Tensions"! /plug #2); Zoe Rose, whose commentary is always a hoot and she makes the best cameo girl ever ;-) ; Sly Cherry Chunks who is not only a lovely bloke but a great inspiration for all things fan-comicy; and any other wonderful folks I may have missed, I Act III shall be updated as I write it, I am FAR from finished. Say about once a week at least._

* * *

Johnny felt completely relaxed.

A few traces of memory began to seep into his waking mind, whirring past like a disjointed picture show. Vague visions of the past few days: Bunking in the cold, dim HQ… Sedusa… Being told of his future as Alecto… losing his way in a distopic Townsville. Even if he had the energy to recall anything else, he would have come up with nothing. 

He felt warm. Soft heavy cloth enfolded him. It was obvious that from the peace and darkness of the room, whoever had taken him in had the intent of nurturing him. The crude surroundings of Team Eumenide had taken their toll on his sheltered person, this comfort was a relief.   
Just as he closed his eyes again, he heard a tiny voice say: "Good morning, sir." 

Sitting up (more abruptly than his muscles would have liked), his gaze rested on a little girl standing beside his bed. She had a quiet, haunted face that was hard to bear looking at, and eyes that were a bizarre shade of pink. She wore a pressed heavy tunic, and her ginger tresses of hair were tied back in a precious bow. She resembled a spooky, delicate china doll kept safely out of reach in a drab old manor, never ever to be played with. And though he had never seen her before, Johnny could swear she looked familiar.   
"Father has requested you rise for the day. He is most anxious to meet you."   
He continued to stare stupidly at her, until the thick wooden door to the room swept open.   
"I see you've had the pleasure of meeting little Blossom already…"  
The boy froze.   
The towering figure emerged from the dark hall, sailing across the shiny granite floor, and looked down at him. With Johnny's own ice-blue eyes. 

It was the oddest feeling, staring up at his future self. Alecto was no doubt a close image of him, but there were things he saw that shouldn't have been there. More muscle. A light relief of wrinkles starting to colour the skin with age. Streaks of grey at his temples. And most noticeably, a harder expression. This was a face that commanded armies and terrified millions, not plain old Johnny Utonium's.   
"I do apologise for the rough way you were manhandled. But I'm afraid that force is the only language my infantry seem to understand." Alecto grinned wryly. 

His own voice, distorted by the events of twenty-five years. In addition to the nausea rising in his stomach, Johnny felt a horrible dry heat in his throat. Alecto must have noticed this discomfort, as he poured a glass of water from a lead crystal jug sitting on the nightstand and handed it to him. 

"Why," bumbled Johnny through a large mouthful, "have you kidnapped me?"   
Alecto's sharp, heavy eyebrows rose in disbelief. "Kidnapped you?" He repeated gallingly. "My dear boy, I _rescued_ you! I couldn't stand to see my own self in the clutches of Eumenide one moment longer."   
"But…" Johnny moved to protest, but fell silent. Alecto's eyes had softened, they watched him intently.   
"Ah…" he raptured, "to think I was once so young and beautiful…"  
Johnny broke away from his gaze. Determinedly: "But Sara and Ace said that you were a monster! You're just… this is a part of some plan to break me down, I just know it!"   
The older man frowned. "…And so gullible." He finished bitterly. 

A small tug on Alecto's sleeve alerted him to Blossom, her eerie eyes fixed on him. "Father?"   
With tenderness he swept her up into his arms.   
"She used to be just like you, you know. A young genius. Outspoken. There wasn't a thing in the world that could stop her."   
Alecto sat on the bed, placing Blossom on his lap. Johnny shifted in his spot, trying to turn away from them. This was becoming too unsettling.   
"Could you ever imagine a government so cruel as to use innocent children as its military?" Alecto asked him.   
"I heard about what happened," answered Johnny, "but I don't see what this has to do with me."   
Alecto half-smiled, turning his head to gaze out at the dim morning behind the half-drawn curtains. "Everything." 

A casual silence.   
"Remember old Mr. Waldren? The teacher we feared that we would end up like?"   
We. Johnny looked up.   
"What if I were to tell you the opposite were to happen? That instead of rotting away in a mundane lifestyle, your talents would be recognised?"   
Alecto seemed to expect an answer. "Uhm, that would be good," Johnny said waveringly.   
The older man sighed like a dragon blowing smoke. "But as a consequence, they see _nothing_ but your talents. Your humanity is all but void. You are nothing but a resource to be exploited." Johnny winced at the choice of words. "Everything you create," continued Alecto, drawing Blossom closer to him, "is a mere commodity." There was an ache creeping into Alecto's voice. One that throbbed in Johnny's ears like a deep-voiced stereo-speaker.   
"But…" Johnny tried to gather his thoughts. "I mean, there are loved ones…"  
"…And think, Johnny. What did they tell you? Red, Sandy, everyone?" 

_ "…Are you stupid or something? They're asking you to use that brain of yours and find a way to kill Alecto…"_

Shock exploded in Johnny's gut, paralysing him. Suddenly he recalled his blinded escape from Team Eumenide into the sewers.   
"They… they want us dead," he realised, hot tears starting to prick at his eyes. "But where are Dad and Kaasan?" The boy exclaimed desperately. "They'd never-"  
Johnny was cut off upon seeing Alecto return to his usual glacial, lofty composure. "I have no more feeling for them. They both stood by idly as it all unfolded. Neither of them did anything to help me."   
All the various shocks and traumas Johnny had gone through in the past few days returned to him threefold. His own parents…   
So it really was true. He _was_ alone.   
"I don't blame you for being upset." Alecto murmured, his soft voice almost paternal. 

He rose from the bed, opened the door and turned to two soldiers standing at attention in the hall. "Escort our guest to my bathroom, will you. He needs to freshen up."   
"For what?" Johnny muttered glumly as he wiped his wet eyes.   
"I'd like to take you for a walk." 

* * *

The walk Alecto offered turned out to be a day-long tour through the massive complex of the base. While the dull sting of his loneliness didn't entirely vanish, it was certainly muted by the sheer awe inspired by Alecto's grandeur. 

The subterranean levels were given over to extensive laboratories manned by hundreds of scientists, all abducted and later hypnotised by Him to love and revere Alecto and his handiwork. As they marched through the busy white-light chambers, endless rows of equipment glinting at them, all the personnel turned and bowed their heads when Alecto approached. Johnny felt as if he were a patron to the Emperor of some bizarre, glorious empire.   
The first few floors were the building's immense barracks. Of course, this was only central command-Alecto had many more military bases throughout the greater Townsville area. Phalanxes of troops were lined up for inspection, all observed by Alecto with a quiet, reserved satisfaction. The well-barred information HQ took up a large, tantalisingly windowless part of the base. Johnny itched to see it but was sternly refused by a firm fatherly Alecto.   
But it was the upper stories that were truly breathtaking-the seemingly endless cement halls gave way to grand and beautiful rooms of both inner circle business and personal recreation. Amongst them were Alecto's vaulted 'office' (Johnny thought it looked more like an ultra-modern throne room), Blossom's cosy pink playroom, and Alecto's private laboratories (which was also restricted).   
As tempting as the Intelligence section had looked, it had nothing on how tempting these laboratories were. Not only did Johnny yearn to see the brilliant personal projects of his own future self, but a little voice in the back of his mind told him that there was something immense behind those dense metal doors: something so exciting, it almost seemed _alive_…

"How did you have this built so quickly?" Johnny gaped, as the two observed a military battalion's drill from a high, comfortable balcony.   
"I gave my plans and blueprints to Him, my elite Captain," answered Alecto, "and he placed it all atop the rubble of the old Townsville."   
Chilling as the answer was, Johnny couldn't help but be morbidly impressed. "It's so massive… it seems too massive to be real."   
Alecto grinned at this. "Oh, it's very real Johnny. And it was all done at our own hands." 

He leant forward in his seat. "Think of everything you saw today. Every last astounding detail. That is what your genius can, and has, accomplished."   
Johnny looked charmingly bashful. "I just never thought that I could ever…"  
"Break free of your struggles?" Alecto finished empathically. "Johnny," he asserted "You, _we_, have great fortitude. We both suffered. And this," he swept out a large, graceful gloved hand "is the phoenix that rose from it. The proper retribution rendered on our oppressors."   
The oppressors. Johnny looked out on the deposed squalor that was the city of Townsville.   
"They are killers." Alecto reminded him. "They offer nothing."   
The boy deferentially turned back to him. 

"Think about the logic of time and fate for a moment," Alecto offered. "If this was not your own real future, it would have dissolved the moment you heard of me. Everything here would have changed with your changed intentions."   
Johnny could see where he was leading.   
"But it has remained solid. Very real, as I said. Your underlying will has not changed upon seeing it. It is the definitive fate. Face the future, Johnny. Your future."   
Slowly, the boy nodded.   
"I can't help but face it," he affirmed, his tone cold and clear. 

* * *

T. B. C. 


	17. Chapter 2: The Lost Girls

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
In response to the latest reviews... mwa ha ha, I love writing for Alecto, he's such a diabolical piece of work, ne? And even now his complications aren't all fully revealed. I liked reading your observations and assumptions though.  
A "nicer" chapter this time around, I'm building to something here._

* * *

Sandy drew a long sip from her coffee mug, listening to the monotone beeping of the tracking equipment surrounding her. None of it could help them now. Johnny had been lost.  
Ace and his exhausted companions had spent a day and a night scouring the neighbourhood for him, determined to find him before any of Alecto's men did. It would have been bad enough if Alecto had taken Buttercup, but with his younger self under his wing, there was no telling what he could do. They had to protect the boy from his own genius, and Sandy was sure that Team Eumenide would prevail.

That was until Sara called off the search.  
She had shaken her head at the others, saying that the damage had already been done. That if Johnny honestly believed the team had turned against him, it would save time to merely relinquish him now. If they were fighting Utonium in one form, they would have to fight him in _all_ forms, whether they wanted to or not.  
It was a sad set of events, and one that they hadn't adjusted to easily.

Sara's footsteps clicked along the tiled floor as she entered the lab. Sandy had her back to her, but could easily feel the tired and dispirited aura wash over her like warmth from a hearth.  
"We have no choice, Sandy." A soft hand lighted on her shoulder.  
"I know," she answered quietly. "It's just…"  
She paused, gazing at the radar screen. "Seeing him as that cheeky teenager again gave me hope. That maybe we could bring him back."  
She didn't see Sara's kind smile. "Johnny gave us _all_ hope, Sandy."

Not much was said for a while. Sara kept her hand on Sandy's shoulder. She'd always been a little protective of her friend. The dear fearless fool had always given her whole self to the world- it was so easy for her to get hurt.   
"He was my hero, Sara."  
Her voice was broken and wavering, the tone of someone crying. Sara pulled her into a hug. Once again, she was a lost girl disillusioned.  
"I know." Sara affirmed. "But sometimes heroes fail us. And we need to look in other places for strength."  
Sandy looked up at her. The delicate power of comprehension was starting to glow faintly in those wide trusting eyes.

"Where's Buttercup?"  
"Cried herself to sleep hours ago. This whole thing has been hardest on her. I think we should let her rest undisturbed as long as she needs to."

* * *

Under the dusky cloak of night, a tiny figure in green zoomed through the dilapidated city.  
She had to find Johnny, she just had to. It wasn't fair to give up on him if he hadn't done anything wrong. He'd protected _her_ from Alecto's clutches, so it was time for Buttercup herself to return the favour.   
Team Eumenide had been so damned determined to protect the little girl, but she knew she had more power than all of them combined. Her instinct to use that power had been bugging her like a bad itch ever since she had arrived in the past. Now it was time for some action. The only problem was: where on earth could Johnny have disappeared to?

She rounded a corner, finding herself on the main street of the city. At the road's end: Alecto's imposing fortress.  
Bingo.

* * *

T. B. C. 


	18. Chapter 3: Angel

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
Two VERY heavy, hard-to-get-through chapters have just been completed, sorry for the delay._

Hairy Gregory (in response to your chapter 1 review): Ah, but the timelines don't arrange themselves like that my friend: Johnny's fate is veering differently to its original course. More will be revealed in the next chapter.

PinkPuff514: I won't lie, we're about to descend into the darkets part of the story, but rest assured that not all is lost.

Zoe Rose: Another appearance from Buttercup will have to wait, but we'll definitely hear from her "ingenius" plan. ;) 

* * *

The quarters Johnny had been assigned were a luscious, well-stocked refuge in the overwhelming greatness of the fortress. Having been designed by his own future self they had everything the boy could desire- in fact, for many hours a day he would simply peruse the shelves of science journals supplied to him. The technological advances of the future were astounding enough, but his interest was particularly piqued by Alecto's own bizarre contributions.

Currently, he was absorbed in a book filled with large, detailed plates of neurological weaponry- designed to attack not the physical form, but the brainwaves of its victim- when his concentration was broken by the prowling padding of footsteps. He looked up, but strangely enough it seemed no-one else was in the room.  
He twisted in his place to stretch out his stiff neck, and almost fell out of his armchair in shock when he saw a pair of slitted jade eyes glinting at him from behind.  
"Good afternoon, young Master," purred Him, "we meet again."

Johnny tensely tried to edge away from the demon.  
"Oh, no need to be scared of me anymore," Him assured, "I haven't been ordered to pursue you."   
The creature grinned. "Still, you never know... and I _never_ say _no_ to succulent prey." He laughed foxily. Johnny tried not to notice the vicious fangs protruding below the plump dark lips.  
"So..." he waveringly tried to assert, "You're going to be my servant one day?"  
Him raised an incredulous, superior eyebrow. "Not for a while yet, young Master."   
"I assume my Lord is keeping you here to protect you from the enemy," he added, slinking down onto Johnny's armrest. "You'll be heading back home soon, no doubt. It's your job to grow up all big and strong in the past to supplement my Lord's power today."  
Johnny froze as he felt a monstrous claw meet the bottom of his chin. Him shamelessly drew him in closer. Pouting his lips, making them seem all the more voluptuous, he simpered in a sickly sweet tone:  
"No need to worry that pretty little head about our big scary mission, baby-"  
"-HIM!"

It was Him's turn to freeze in terror now. Alecto stood by the doorway, frowning with almost tyrannical sternness. He gestured silently for the demon to get out. For all Him's expression was worth, he may as well have had a goldfish tail sticking out of his mouth.  
"Yes my Lord," he bumbled silently as he exited, tail between legs.

The awkwardness of the moment dissolved when Alecto summoned Johnny to follow him. They made their way down the spotless corridor in silence, before Johnny dared to speak up.  
"Forgive me for being frank, but I think your Captain's under the impression that you care about him just as much as the mission. Maybe more."  
Alecto nodded. "Let him think that. His power has proved to be invaluable under my thumb. And the extent of his loyalty is truly remarkable. To think of how he swore to protect you back in the past, even when..."  
Alecto seemed to trail off, and Johnny started. Had he heard that right?  
"Wait..." The boy's voice rose. "You didn't order your men to _attack_ me, did you?"

A brief pause, followed by a snappish "Of course not. You don't really think I'd have such little regard for my well-being as to harm my younger self?"  
"Oh." Johnny mumbled. He decided to be satisfied with this response.

They had reached Alecto's vaulted office. Johnny felt compelled to ask: "So what did you want to show me?"  
The older man began to prowl up and down the width of the room, his head cocked at an angle as he looked towards the doorway of his private laboratory.  
"For about the past year, I have had a recurring dream. A strange vision with images too powerful to ignore."  
Johnny was sitting on a step of the room's dais. He now leant foward with interest. "What kind of images?" He asked.  
Alecto's deep, incontestable voice echoed hauntingly up to him amgonst the panels of dark granite.  
"There is the faint outline of a city. Extended and perfected, it's the centre of something greater. And hovering in the sky above, a bold young form watching over the people with its blue eyes. Watching their every move."  
Alecto turned to look at Johnny.  
"Any idea who it is?" The boy asked.  
"I can never see it properly, but I believe it to be an angel. It polices the karma of what it observes, it assures that justice is done. And it's strong. Invincible, even."  
Johnny really wasn't sure what to make of this. He looked down at the floor.  
Alecto stopped pacing. "Come with me," he called, and the boy hopped up from the steps.

Together they entered the double doors of the laboratory. Inside was a holding room, one wall dominated by another door: huge, metal and electronic.  
Alecto entered a series of entrance codes and it shuddered open. Suddenly the temperature dropped, and they proceeded to a large metal chamber lit from the sides by blue fluroescent lights.  
Shining grey tabletops lined the lab. As Alecto and Johnny passed along the aisles of specimens and equipment they cast ghostly shadows upon the tiled floor. Guards stood watch as a choice batch of lab assistants monitored various workstations, maintaining activities that Alecto himself had started.

It was only now that Johnny's eyes rested on the cylindrical glass chamber in the centre of the room. A soft low gurgling sound emanated from its interior, it was filled with murky, greyish-green water. He approached it, watching small streams of bubbles rise from the bottom to the top of the tank.  
Like a curious toddler watching the soothing rhythms of an aquarium, he pressed his nose up to the glass.  
And was met face to face by a huge pair of drooping eyes.

He leapt back in shock, letting out a small scream. What he now saw was the body of a child suspended in the liquid, limp and motionless. The eyes stared out at him vacantly like those on a corpse (was there a conciousness behind them?). He now noticed the matted blonde hair floating about in the water, the spider's web of wires connected to her small body... and the gaping gory gashes on her torso, in the process of an eerie artificial healing.

"Ah, there's my baby girl!" Alecto cooed, falling upon the tank like the gushing mother of a newborn. "How are we today?"  
He stroked the glass lovingly, and Johnny flinched in shock when the girl's pale eyes blinked back at their admirer.  
"Johnny," Alecto announced, "meet your third future daughter, Bubbles."  
His eyes widened. "You... you mean the one who..." The boy could not finish his sentence for the reaction from Alecto.  
"Yes," the man replied curtly, "she was attacked by an old opponent of the girls'. But I have obtained the material that managed to do this to her. It will never fall into the wrong hands again."  
Johnny nodded. "So she'll be safe when she's..."  
"...Resurrected, of course." Alecto finished. "But I don't plan to bring her back with only her old powers."  
The man indicated the various projects laid out in front of them. Cell samples under chemical tests, genetically modified chunks of tissue, glass tubes full of bubbling draughts and potions forming kaleidoscopes of multicoloured reactions...  
"See these? All an evaluation of what went wrong. I wish to improve upon my child's defenses. Once this project is complete, she should be at least a thousand times stronger and smarter."  
In the already freezing air, a chill went down Johnny's spine. "Invincible, even." He added softly.  
Alecto smiled.

* * *

T. B. C. 


	19. Chapter 4: The Ouroboros

"There is no-one else the angel could possibly be." Alecto affirmed as he reclined in a large armchair, holding a snifter of crimson liquor. "She and her sisters are the first of her kind. The beginning of something greater."  
"A new race of humans?" Johnny chanced, his insides squirming with an odd excitement at the thought.  
"Perhaps," Alecto mused, "up until now I haven't quite been sure what purpose they could possibly serve. I certainly don't wish my girls to become lowly attack dogs for the masses again." He took a long sip of liquor to drown the bitterness that rose in his throat.  
"But I am certain that Bubbles herself must have anger in her heart for what was wrought on her."  
"Understood." Johnny then looked down at his feet, unable to think of anything to say. He felt a little foolish not being able to follow his future self's train of thought.  
"But..." Alecto said, eyeing the boy craftily, "when you turned up I realised that you yourself are the beginning of something greater."  
Johnny's head snapped up.  
"That perhaps you and little Bubbles would make a good team."

The teenager sputtered. "But I couldn't possibly-"  
"-I will train you. After all, my brilliance is your brilliance." Their eyes locked.  
"Once you are both ready, take Bubbles back to the past with you- Him and his talents will accompany you, naturally. Let the child exact her revenge. While she's there, she will help you to establish yourself as Townsville's true ruler. Then once you are me, Lord Alecto shall be even more powerful. This empire will look a paltry outpost in comparison to what we could do."  
"But... what about the girls?"  
"They will never have to suffer in the first place. You will have the knowhow to imbue them with invincibility upon their birth."  
Things began to click in Johnny's mind. "So then... Alecto would feed Alecto."  
A confirming nod. "Like the serpent biting its own tail."

Johnny frowned. "But then how come you're not already-"  
Alecto held up a hand assuringly. "The timeline shall rearrange itself once you carve out your new destiny."  
The man stood, finished with his drink.  
"If there's one thing I've learnt, it's that fate is yours to control. And before us is an opportunity to do just that."

With that, he left the room, turning the lights off behind him. Johnny slumped over in his chair in the near-blackness, his mind racing while a heavy tightness constricted his chest. To be the embryo which Alecto was contained in was one thing, but the idea of actually _becoming_ Alecto... not decades into the future, but _now_...

Images sailed through his mind's eye. Of his life back home- he felt nostalgic. Then of his parents and friends- a bittersweet affection, before he remembered how they were to withdraw their love for him later in life. He was powerless to stop that.  
Then he thought of the three little girls that would one day be his: Buttercup the troubled street waif, the wilting, catatonic Blossom, and the floating mangled piece of flesh that was Bubbles. There were three little mistreated souls beneath those ghostly faces, ones that would come to depend on him. And it seemed that he had already let them down.  
From the messy layers of emotions suddenly piling up on him, he could only discern one: an unrelenting anger. Anger at all that had happened to him.

And it was then he realised: he did not need to _become_ Alecto. He already was.

* * *

T. B. C. 


End file.
